First Try: Team 7
by Lucillia
Summary: A wiser and more experienced Naruto is forced onto a team he hadn't wanted to join in the first place. However, as they say, "Those who break the rules are trash. Those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash.". Sequel to First Try.
1. The Night Before

A wise man had once said that "Life is a long road that is easy to get lost on". At the moment, Naruto was feeling somewhat lost on that road. Looking back, he realized that he must've taken a wrong turn somewhere since, the road had gone in what in his opinion was a rather disturbing direction without him realizing it until it was too late.

"...And before I could go up to her, Ino got her hands on her and turned her into Rabid Sasuke Fangirl # 2." Naruto said miserably to his companion that evening.

He knew that he should be at home resting or preparing himself for whatever farce Kakashi decided to spring on him and his new team tomorrow but, he had needed someone to commiserate with about his sucky new assignment, and Suzume had shown up like a gift from heaven. After he'd run into her after she'd been leaving the Administration Complex at the end of the mission she'd been on for the last couple of weeks, they had gone to the bar that Tetsuo-sensei had brought them to to celebrate Suzume and Satoshi's promotions to Chunin, since Ichiraku's was now reserved for high points during his life. The bar fit his mood quite nicely since it was both a place where shinobi tended to go to commiserate about their problems and the place where his team had pretty much split apart. It had been a while since the team had split apart, and a while since he and Suzume had seen each-other so, they had some catching up to do.

As he was still a Genin he had gotten cranberry juice but, that was okay since he didn't like alcohol all that much anyway. Suzume had ordered sake because they were "in a bar", but wasn't drinking very much of it. Based on the occasional winces, she seemed to share his views on the flavor of alcohol. Her cup had spent far more time on the table than it did in her hand, and the tokkuri was mostly full.

"Now, I'm expected to be on a team with both of them, and I'm certain that Kakashi will know if I try and throw tomorrow's test and report me, and I'm still considering doing it anyway." he continued unhappily. "I don't even know why Kakashi wants to be my sensei, I was perfectly happy with Tetsuo-sensei."

Suzume quietly gave him a pitying look. Apparently, if it was her, she wouldn't have wanted to be stuck in the same situation he was in either. Tetsuo-sensei was a good teacher whom none of them would have traded for the world, and it had been his impression that Suzume and Satoshi would have eventually returned to the team after they'd had their chance to fly on a few B-Ranked missions if this hadn't happened.

"And how was your mission?" he finally asked after having forced his teammate to listen to him for over an hour.

He'd been taught some manners over the years and knew that it wouldn't be polite to spend the entire evening trying to get some sympathy over his fate, and not offer a shoulder of his own should it be needed even if his mood was a completely crappy one at the moment. He knew that something was up with Suzume as well since she hadn't looked entirely happy when he'd run into her but, it was more of a my day was crappy unhappy rather than the "My life just got completely steamrolled." unhappy he was feeling.

"It absolutely sucked." Suzume replied. "The client would not stop hitting on me. I wouldn't have minded it so much if he were young and handsome but, he had to be like fifty, and he was missing half his teeth. On the way back, we decided to stop at an onsen. Unfortunately for us in this case, it was a mixed bath. What should have been a very relaxing evening was completely ruined when this white haired pervert stared at me and Eri the entire time, not even bothering to try and hide the fact that he was doing so..."

As Suzume shared her problems, he listened to his teammate as attentively as he could. Not only was it the polite thing to do but, you never knew what you could learn when you did so. Someone had once let a good bit of blackmail material slip without realizing it in his presence, and he would have missed it if he hadn't been paying attention. Since then, he'd never wasted an opportunity to needle the person in question with his knowledge he'd gained every time he encountered him. Right now however, he was providing a sympathetic ear for his teammate, and a shoulder to cry on since she had done the same for him.

* * *

Sasuke growled as he pummeled the training dummy with his fists. The idiot, the moron, the dead last had been a Genin for two years and he hadn't so much not noticed it as refused to believe it until he'd had his nose rubbed in undeniable proof of the fact. The person who had been held up as being the most likely to fail since day one at the Academy had surpassed him and left him in the dust long before he'd even realized that he'd flown by, and instead of trying to catch up and surpass him like he should have been doing, he'd spent two years ignoring the now very obvious dust cloud that had been left in his wake.

As he pummeled the dummy he was training with, he reviewed his and the Uzumaki's time at the Academy together, trying to see if there were signs of when and how this had happened. As he thought back on it, there had been one phrase that constantly came out of the mouth of the boy who - now that he thought about it - managed to catch a Chunin in a trap that only utilized a chalkboard eraser and a bit of grease, and that was "I was joking."

Shuriken go flying everywhere except the target and nearly take out the sensei:

"I was joking."

Kunai hits a bird passing overhead rather than the stationary target five feet below it:

"I was joking."

The Assistant Instructor's kneecap nearly gets broken due to a wild and unpredictable move:

You get the picture.

Every single time after every single failure, he'd hear "I was joking". Back then, he had thought that it had been the idiot's way of trying to cover for his obvious inadequacies, especially considering the fact that the boy couldn't even do a proper Bunshin. He was wrong however. Apparently, the Uzumaki really had just been joking around. The little bastard had played him. He'd played all of them, and when he'd gotten bored with his little game, he went and blew through the graduation exam like it was nothing.

Now knowing that the Uzumaki could have graduated any time he'd wanted to, he tried to think it through to find a logical reason for why he would do such a thing. It didn't make sense. Why would the Uzumaki do something like that, something so absolutely pointless, when he could be well on his way in his ninja career?

After several moments of thought he finally remembered the most likely reason for why the Uzumaki behaved the way he had. After Ni...That Man had killed the clan, the laws had been changed, and the lowest age at which anyone could graduate the Academy had been raised to ten. Because of this, the Uzumaki had been forcibly held back for who knew how many years. Long and tedious years in which the Uzumaki had undoubtedly grown bored just as he had near the end of his stay at the Academy.

He'd heard stories about geniuses who were held back and destroyed their surroundings out of sheer boredom. One of the reasons Uchiha Madara had been sent out on the battlefield at such a young age had been because of the chaos he had been causing in the clan encampment. While Naruto hadn't been setting tents on fire and destroying cooking pots, he had caused enough chaos that the Academy had finally been willing to let him go and been glad of it.

Now knowing what the Uzumaki was, he knew that he would have to find a way to surpass him before he would be ready to kill That Man. If he could find a way to defeat one true genius, he would be able to find a way to defeat another...

* * *

Sakura checked her supplies again, feeling apprehensive about what the morning and the future following it would hold. She would be taking a test with her team, a test that would decide the team's future including even if they would still be a team following the test, and she feared how Sasuke would react if she caused them to fail. Sasuke would be extremely disappointed, and probably would reject her in favor of Ino. Naruto however, Naruto would...

On the day Naruto had pinned her and threatened her, she had complained to her mother about how Naruto had threatened to break her arm practically the instant she got home. Her mother had promptly dragged her down to the office of the civilian peacekeeping force that had risen up in the wake of the Uchiha massacre to deal with civilian on civilian crime to make a report. Once they got there, her mother had stormed straight up to the desk of the first officer she spotted, dragging her in her wake...

_"I want that monster arrested!" Her mother yelled, as soon as she had gotten the attention of the officer she'd dragged her in front of._

_"Who are you talking about ma'am?" the female officer asked, as she tried to calm her mother down._

_"The Uzumaki boy, who else?" her mother replied._

_After her mother's demand, the officer went over to a computer and started putting in information. Whatever result she received once the information had been processed had caused a frown to mar her rather plain features. She looked rather apologetic when she returned soon after._

_"I'm sorry," the officer said when she reached her desk where she and her mother were standing. "Uzumaki Naruto is a registered shinobi, and therefore you'll have to file your complaint at the Administration Complex."_

_Snarling obscenities under her breath, her mother grabbed her, turned, angrily stormed out of the station ,and dragged her all the way to the Administration Complex where she then dragged her all the way over to the desks where people registered civilian complaints against shinobi._

_"I would like to file a complaint against Uzumaki Naruto." her mother said to the bored looking ninja at the desk the instant she arrived._

_"What is the nature of this complaint?" the ninja asked, grabbing a form and a pen._

_"That filthy little monster threatened to break my daughter's arm!" her mother replied._

_"At what time was this threat made, and where were you and what were you doing at the time?" the Chunin asked as he started filling out information on the form._

_"I was outside the Academy. I had just gotten out of class for the day, and noticed him hanging around on that swing in the tree near the entrance. I...I tried to hit him." she replied, deciding to leave the "for pretending to be a ninja part" out considering the reason for her current location._

_"Let me get this straight," the man said coldly as he crumpled the form that he'd started filling out. "You, an Academy student, decided to attack a full fledged shinobi who is only a Genin because he had a run of seriously bad luck, and isn't currently on his way to the Chunin exams because we don't want to give Iwa a chance to legally get their revenge on him for what he did to two of their Genin, and you want us to punish him because he decided to go easy on you and let you off with a warning?"_

As they say, hindsight is 20/20. She should never have let her mother drag her to the Tower considering the fact that Naruto had already informed her of what would happen, and she should never have asked what Naruto had done to those Iwa Genin. The desk ninja who had apparently heard the story from a friend of his who was a Jounin who had been to the Chunin Exams in Kiri had gleefully told her in vivid and extremely gruesome detail.

Funny, Sasuke had never seemed to notice that she had kept silent about Naruto's ninja status or lack thereof after that...

If Naruto had been willing to do something like that to people who had just gotten in the way of his promotion, what would he do to her if she failed tomorrow's test?

That question haunted her for the rest of the evening as she prepared hoping that she didn't mess up and upset either Naruto or Sasuke-kun.

* * *

Kakashi polished one of the bells against his sleeve before checking it again for any spots or smudges. Everything had to be perfect for tomorrow, including the bells that had been in use since the Nidaime had first taken a team. Because omorrow, Minato-sensei's son would be his student.

Despite the fact that the kid seemed to resent the fact that he'd been taken from his other sensei, and the fact that he was Chunin in all but name, it would be worth it. He owed it to Minato-sensei to make sure that Naruto was at least half the man he had been. He had failed everyone else. Obito was gone, Rin was gone, Kushina-san was gone, and Minato-sensei was gone. Naruto was all he had left.

**Edited 11-8-12**


	2. The Bell Farce

Naruto grumbled as the alarm clock got him up a little earlier than usual. He wasn't as bright eyed and bushy tailed as he'd normally be in the morning since he'd spent half the night commiserating over his new assignment and questioning the mental faculties of the Hokage with Suzume. Poor Suzume had had a bit of a rough few weeks herself as well. Along with the dangers of being a shinobi, kunoichi were forced to endure men constantly staring at them and making advances or worse because they were women. The white haired pervert who had ruined Suzume's bath was going on his prank list. He'd know him when he ran into him, since he got a good description of him from Suzume.

Right now though, he was seeling even sorrier for himself than he was for his teammate. He'd been put on what had to have been the Genin team from hell. There had been a time when he would have been over the moon at being placed on a team with Sakura, and an admittedly much shorter period of time when he would have been happy to be on a team with Sasuke. That time however had long since passed. Time had changed them and his views of them, and not for the better.

He had once had a massive crush on the pink haired girl named Sakura, and allowed her to hit him because that was the only physical contact he had gotten from her, and he had believed that it would be worth all of the pain and misery in the end when he and Sakura were together. In those days, he'd had a really naive view of what a boyfriend was, and after learning from his teammates who had already started navigating such relationships, he now knew that what he had actually wanted from Sakura had been to be her friend. Back then, the most he had wanted from the girl was a couple of dinner dates, and for her to hang out with him, which was pretty much the definition of friend.

Admittedly, he hadn't gone about winning her over the right way even though he did give her presents. But, as Tetsuo-sensei and Suzume had explained, her reaction to him had been both extreme, and extremely abusive, and that any relationship that developed should he have managed to win her over would most likely be an unhealthy and abusive one since there was a good chance that Sakura would have continued to abuse him out of habit even if he had become her friend. Sakura was like a rose. She was pretty to look at but, man did she have thorns.

Sasuke...Sasuke was a rather thorny issue himself. At the beginning of their time at the Academy when they had still been small and he'd been in a different class, Sasuke had been a rather nice boy. He'd even played with the Uchiha a couple of times before the boy's father interfered and told him not to associate with him. Then, he changed and not for the better. It was understandable why he changed considering, but still...

Sasuke had always been a much better student than him, and back then, that had frustrated him to no end. He had hurt and humiliated himself many times trying to prove himself the Uchiha's equal, and all he had gotten from the boy in return was cold dismissal. Even then, he still would have been willing to be the boy's friend had he but asked but, there came the day that ruined any chance of friendship whatsoever in his book. That day had been the day he had first run into Sasuke after he had graduated.

The one time he had achieved something before Sasuke, the boy had ignored his accomplishment rather than acknowledge it and, as he later learned from Iruka-sensei, chose to completely deny that it had ever happened.

Having either Sasuke or Sakura on the team he could have learned to deal with but, having both however...

Throwing the true Genin test would be his best option. He was already a Genin so, the worst that could happen to him in this case would be for him to be returned to Tetsuo-sensei with a black mark on his record. As long as he kept his nose clean, and didn't get anymore of those, his career would be fine. Since he knew the actual purpose of the test, and his teammates didn't, things should turn out fine in that endeavour.

Thinking about the test that was to come reminded him of the first time he had taken the final Genin test...

_The test was over and his new sensei had told them that they'd passed!_

_"Does anyone know what the purpose of this test was?" asked the man whom he wasn't sure whether to call Shimura-sensei or Tetsuo-sensei since he didn't know what sort of person he was yet. _

_He didn't know what the test could've been for other than to screw with the kids who'd just graduated, and from his teammates's blank looks, he could guess that they didn't know either._

_"Teamwork." his new sensei said when all three of them failed to answer. "Up until now, you have been tested individually and have gotten by on your own merits. In the shinobi ranks however, ninja are most often sent on missions in teams. To succeed, the team has to work together, and anyone who goes off on their own not only puts themselves at risk, but puts their entire team at risk as well. This test was intended to weed out those who would not be able to work together with their teammates."_

_"In this test, one's own self interests are put at stake, making it more difficult to work as a team, especially considering the fact that you have not been ordered to do so. I told you that you had to catch me before ten, and that the last person to catch me would be the one who failed. Had you just scrabbled around individually trying to be the first or at the very least the second to catch me, I would not have let you do so. While you could have done a better job of working together, you did so nonetheless. Uzumaki here set up a number of ingenious traps, and you Suzume-chan and Satoshi-kun worked together to corner me in them and capture me." his new sensei continued._

_He decided that it would be a very wise thing to say nothing at this point. If sensei said that they had worked together, they had worked together, and he wouldn't say otherwise._

_"Because of this, you have passed, and I am proud of you all." his new sensei said._

_**His sensei was proud of him! His sensei was proud of him!**_

He had taken the test before when he'd joined Team 5, knew the purpose of the test, and Kakashi knew that he knew. If Sasuke and Sakura worked together, he would at least have to pretend to be making some small effort to pass while subtly trying to break the team apart without Kakashi noticing. But, if his would-be teammates did what he thought they would do, which was what about two-thirds of the teams usually ended up doing every year, he wouldn't have to do anything more than sit back and not clue them in.

Grumbling, he pulled himself out of his musings over the unwanted test and headed out the door. Even though he had a sneaking suspicion that Kakashi would be running on Kakashi Time Plus in order to rile his new recruits and make them even more ill tempered when the time for the test came, he set out to reach the designated meeting place near the memorial on time. Instead of taking the time to prepare breakfast, he took a granola bar with him, and a spare for later because there was no way in hell that he was going to go all morning without eating, and because he'd been run until he'd puked once before, and he knew it wasn't fun if you had alot in your stomach when that happened. He wouldn't put it past Kakashi to run them until they puked as part of the test. Since he had a great deal of stamina, Kakashi would more than likely run him that much harder than the others if he did so.

When he reached the meeting point, he found Sasuke and Sakura already there. Sakura looked like she hadn't slept in a week and Sasuke looked rather tired as well. Apparently, from the looks of it, they had both individually pulled an all-nighter. He'd pulled all-nighters before, and wasn't as affected by them but, he'd gotten some sleep last night, so he felt more put out than tired like his teammates were, as he was sure he'd be stuck waiting for Kakashi again.

He remembered what waiting for Kakashi had been like during the week the man had taught him the Kage Bunshin. Every day that he'd had those lessons with Kakashi, he had sat there increasingly impatiently for hours on end until the man had finally arrived. The first day had been the worst. If Tetsuo-sensei hadn't warned him about the man's habits, he would have thought that his sensei had been pulling a trick on him. In fact, he had almost believed he'd been tricked by the time Kakashi had finally deigned to show up. While Tetsuo-sensei had been rather nice compared to most of the rest of the village, he hadn't liked him all that much in the beginning. Tetsuo-sensei had eventually warmed up to him as time went on though.

As he watched Sasuke and Sakura yawn as they struggled to remain awake, his hands itched to set up traps all around the designated training ground, and he knew that he had at least two hours in which he could do so, however he had decided not to make any effort on this no matter how much it stung his professional pride. So, instead of littering the area with a number of traps a Jounin would be hard-pressed to avoid, he settled down with the books he'd brought with him. He started with a re-read of Uchiha Madara's A Treatise on Traps.

In the early days of Konoha, back before the Shodai Hokage had been selected, Uchiha Madara had written several books for the new ninja library, hoping to curry favor with the shinobi who were flocking to the newly forming village and be elected to the position of Hokage himself. After Senju Hashirama was selected to be the Shodai Hokage by the will of both the people of the village and the Daimyo of Fire Country because he'd practically built the village's infrastructure from the ground up single-handedly, Madara had tried to take the Hokage's hat in battle. The Uchiha had not been victorious, and had died in the titanic struggle that had formed the Valley of the End, leaving behind a legacy of a mostly forgotten series of rather insightful if somewhat boring books on the ninja arts. After reading it, he was convinced that the trap book would have been the standard textbook for traps specialists if the man who'd written it hadn't fallen so far out of favor. It was brilliant, easy to understand despite being a bit boring and long-winded, and some of the traps it showed you how to make were rather ingenious if somewhat dated.

Even with all of the books he'd brought with him including Madara's traps treatise, the wait was a long and boring one. Kakashi finally showed up with two bento and a alarm clock while he was in the middle of the Field Cooking Guide which he'd picked up because he really didn't want to be stuck eating only field rations when he left the village on missions since Satoshi wasn't there to cook for him. Seeing the bento boxes, the reason the man had told them not to eat breakfast suddenly hit him, the bastard had wanted them to fight over lunch.

"You're late!" Sakura, who had spent the last four hours staring at him and whimpering again, screeched.

Considering how scared of him she'd been since the day he'd snapped and told Sakura that if she tried to hit him again he'd break her arm, he was surprised that she'd even had the courage to admit disliking him yesterday, especially as vehemently as she had.

In contrast, Sasuke however had pretended not to react to both Sakura's yell, and Kakashi's lateness. The boy had some pretty good acting skills. Either that, or he was extremely good at denial, which could be a serious problem. He himself had refrained from reacting much but, that was because he'd gotten used to Kakashi's tardiness long ago and he'd heard worse yelling around the village.

"So what was it this time?" he asked before the man could give one of his stock excuses. "I know it wasn't the memorial since I can see it from here. So what was it? Porn? You kill another expensive alarm clock and have to give it a decent burial? Or did you make those lunches yourself?"

"The alarm clock actually." Kakashi replied as he held up the shiny new alarm clock he'd brought with him.

That clock was most likely going to suffer a most gruesome end on Kakashi's nightstand after it was done being used as a timer for whatever test Kakashi had planned. When it came to the more experienced ninjas, alarm clocks usually didn't last too long. After a while, certain reactions become instinctive in regards to loud noises going off practically right next to one's ear. Most ninja got around this little problem by training themselves to wake up at a certain time. When it came to some of the more stubborn ninja with a little extra disposable income however...

He understood though, he'd actually broken the alarm clock he'd had since he was a little kid shortly after he came back from Kiri. The kunai jamming its inner workings had made it completely unsalvageable, and he'd been forced to purchase another one. Fortunately, the nightmares had faded a bit, and he hadn't broken any since then.

After setting his doomed clock aside, Kakashi explained the rules of his test which involved bells. When Kakashi had mentioned coming at him with the intent to kill, he felt a surge of some emotion he couldn't name because it seemed to be a mix of several emotions at the same time. The last time he'd gone at someone with the intent of killing them, rather than in defense of self or others, he had done so, and he'd been suffering from nightmares ever since. While he knew that Kakashi could beat him hands down if there was a fight, there was still the worry that...something would happen.

When the test finally started several hours later than had originally been scheduled, Sasuke and Sakura did as he had anticipated and promptly split up without a word or any covert signals or gestures indicating planning of some sort passing between the two of them as they did so. Realizing that he'd been given his out, he himself moved to the trees in order to find a location in which to kill time until the test was over. As soon as he found a sweet little hiding spot, he trapped it in case Kakashi or one of his new teammates showed up, and pulled out a book and the extra granola bar.

He had learned long ago to always keep at least a little food on him so he didn't end up starving if there was an accident with the supplies. He'd also learned to keep his granola bars in a separate pocket from his Emergency Rations bars as both were roughly the same shape and size. On more than one occasion, he'd accidentally handed out one of the latter when he'd intended to give one of the former, and had accidentally grabbed one of the ration bars for himself when he'd meant to grab one of the granola ones. Granola bars were sort of sweet, and Emergency Rations bars - to put it mildly - tasted like crap. Absent-mindedly opening and taking a bite of the one you didn't want while absorbed in another activity was an unpleasant experience.

Eventually, after Sakura screamed indicating that Kakashi had done something that had taken her out of the running and Sasuke got his ass handed to him from the sound of it, Kakashi made his way over to him. When he noticed the man was nearby, he casually pretended to ignore the man's presence while preparing to fight if necessary. Instead of attacking him as he half expected, Kakashi just stood there and sighed.

"What are you doing Naruto?" Kakashi asked, looking up into the tree in which he was perched.

"Waiting for the other two to get a clue, since the test was for their benefit." he replied. "As soon as they pull their heads out of their asses, they can easily come and find me."

"Whatever." Kakashi said as he hopped into a nearby tree and pulled out his own book, clearly not impressed with Sasuke's and Sakura's performances either.

By the time the alarm went off indicating that the test was over, Sasuke and Sakura, who'd been working separately, still hadn't gotten the idea of what the test was about. Sakura was tied to the post since, despite the fact he'd put absolutely no effort into passing the test, Kakashi was well aware of the fact that trying to tie him up would be a futile effort, and since Sasuke had actually made a pretty good try at getting the bells. As soon as Kakashi ordered them not to feed Sakura and vanished to a spot nearby to make sure they were following orders or whatever, he cut Sakura loose. As far as he was concerned, the test was done, everyone failed, and he could go home. As soon as the girl was free, he tossed her his lunch since he planned on seeing if Tetsuo-sensei was in the mood for barbecue as today definitely was not an Ichiraku day and the girl had looked and sounded as if she had been starving all morning.

As soon as he started walking away, Kakashi shushined in with a thunderous expression on his face and a Genjutsu that showed an ominous stormy sky complete with overly dramatic flashes of lightening stretching across the scenery behind him. Apparently, the man had taken some Genjutsu tips from Maito Gai whose seaside sunset was rapidly becoming infamous.

"And, just where do you think you're going?" the man asked.

"The test is over and I..." He started, explaining why he was ditching his new and now former teammates.

"Passed!" Kakashi said in an overly cheerful manner as the Genjutsu dissipated revealing the sunny Autumn sky.

"What?" he asked, completely surprised.

This couldn't be happening. _This couldn't be happening_.

While he stood there staring at Kakashi in open-mouthed shock, Kakashi launched into an explanation of how the team had passed because he'd chucked his lunch at Sakura out of pity for the girl, and all he could think was "Crap". If he'd known that his act of charity would have had this result, he would have taken the lunch with him and dumped it somewhere. Near the end of the lecture Kakashi said something he thought was particularly wise, and therefore most likely borrowed from someone else:

"Those who break the rules are trash. Those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash." Kakashi had said.

Considering his, Sasuke and Sakura's behavior during the test, he could already say that his new and unwanted team was currently worse than trash. The only way to go from there was up. Right?

**Edited 11-8-12**


	3. Bad Day Turnaround

Teuchi frowned when he saw the blond boy coming up the street. One of his best customers, who happened to be the son of at least one of and quite possibly two of his late best customers, had abruptly stopped coming and he wanted to know why, especially considering the fact that the last time he'd done something like that was when he was recovering from some serious trauma. It wasn't just that Naruto's absence was putting his shinobi customers on edge for some reason, he was slightly worried for the boy, and Ayame had been rather worried about him as well.

"Hey Naruto!" he called getting the boy's attention.

"Yeah, old man?" Naruto called back as he headed over to the stand.

"Why haven't you been coming?" he asked. "I know it can't be missions, since Ayame's seen you around the village while she was making deliveries."

Naruto sat down more out of habit than anything, and began to tell him exactly why he hadn't been coming by lately. The boy's sitting down had been exactly what he'd been hoping for since he knew from experience that once he sat down, the boy wouldn't leave without eating. Without being asked, he began preparing the noodles for the boy's first bowl. He knew from experience that if he gave the boy one free bowl, he would always eat more. If he did not eat more right then for whatever reason, then he would come back at a later date and do so. It had been a free bowl of ramen that had netted the boy as a regular customer years ago.

"They put me on a different team a few weeks back." Naruto said, sounding unhappy.

That was it. Though he and his daughter were civilians, his father had been a shinobi, like the vast majority of his customer base were. After spending so much time around shinobi, he understood some of the issues that came with the job that he'd decided long ago was not for him. Naruto's problem, though highly uncommon during peacetime was unfortunately a rather common one during times of war.

The Academy was like an elementary school with weapons, some kids become fond of the instructors there and made friends for life there and some kids didn't but, the Genin teams were a different issue entirely. In a properly run Genin team, the bond between the Genin and their Jounin sensei was a rather close one approaching that of one between a parent and a child. Genin often stayed close to their Jounin sensei and their teammates long after they had advanced to Chunin or even Jounin themselves, unless one or the other ended up dying. Sometimes however, a disaster of some sort occurred, and a Genin would be forced to accept a new team and call a new person "Sensei". When this happened, the Genin in question often had a hard time adjusting to the person who, in their view, had usurped the role of sensei, and their new teammates at first. Eventually, things either got better, or the Genin got transferred.

But, Naruto's placement with a different instructor didn't make sense. Shimura Tetsuo was an active-duty Jounin in good health who could easily have taken a pair of new Genin from the Fall class to fill out his team to replace the two who had advanced to Chunin, as he had been talking about doing at the end of the Summer Exams. There couldn't have been a falling out between Naruto and his sensei, since he'd seen Tetsuo yesterday and he seemed fine with Naruto if somewhat upset about something that pertained to the boy. Any reasons he could think of that would necessitate Naruto being forcibly removed from the Shimura's care would have quite likely ended with the man being in prison or executed. Since the man was alive, free, and still a Jounin, none of those things could have happened.

"You're not too happy with your new team I take it." he said, hoping that Naruto would provide more information so he could solve this little puzzle that was frankly beginning to worry him a little as well.

"Not really. I'll work with them because it's my duty but..." Naruto replied. "Kakashi was an okay teacher when he taught me the Kage Bunshin but, he's not Tetsuo-sensei, and he doesn't really have time for me because he's stuck fixing whatever the hell the Academy did wrong with the other two. I know for a fact that whatever it was, it wasn't Iruka-sensei's fault because he did a good job with me. I heard somewhere that that Mizuki jerk who tried stealing from the Hokage had been a teaching assistant, so it was probably his doing..."

Now that it was done cooking, he set the bowl of Naruto's usual down in front of the boy, and the boy began to eat, continuing his story as he did so.

As he listened, he found himself wondering what the heck was going on. Why would Kakashi take Naruto? By all accounts, the shinobi who had been coming here off and on since he was a little shrimp hadn't been interested in taking on any students. He'd been hearing rumors recently that the man had been given some sort of bribe to make him take a team this year though. Had Naruto been the bribe? Why would Naruto be considered an acceptable bribe in the first place? Ever since Kakashi could barely see over the counter, the only person he'd seemed to care about was the Yondaime...

Well, it would seem that a certain theory of his had indeed been correct. He had speculated about it for years, ever since the Hokage had shown up with a blond haired, blue eyed, chubby cheeked toddler who bore the surname of a certain redhead that Minato had brought here on a couple of dinner dates before he became Hokage but, nothing had seemed to confirm or deny his suspicions. Until now, that was. It would seem that he was right, Naruto was the son of two of his best customers, one of whom had pissed off a shitload of people and died, leaving the boy completely unprotected.

"...And Sakura's totally scared of me, but I guess that it was sort of my fault since I had threatened to break her arm when she tried to hit me." Naruto continued between bites. "I hadn't been in a good mood that day, so I was a little harsher than usual when I decided to teach her why it wasn't a good idea to try to hit me..."

Noticing that Naruto's free bowl was almost finished, he began to get Naruto's second bowl ready. Things were getting back to normal now. Something just didn't seem right when he didn't see Naruto's smiling face at least a couple times a week when he wasn't on missions, and it wasn't just him who felt that way either. He had been losing several shinobi customers who had avoided his stand because something had seemed "off" as well. They should come back now that Naruto was back.

* * *

Konohamaru sighed in relief. Since Naruto was talking now, it would be safe to approach him. Over the last few weeks, Naruto had been in an odd, grumbling bad mood which was different from his normal "Bad Days" which had been happening far less frequently lately. Today however, when he had first seen Naruto after he had gotten off his D-Rank of the day, he had noticed that it had been looking to be a "Bad Day". He could tell even before he'd seen his boss's face just by the way he was walking. However, instead of remaining in sullen solitary silence and snapping at all who approached the way he usually did on a "Bad Day", Naruto's mood had almost magically changed after he'd had a talk with the proprietor of Ichiraku and a couple bowls of ramen.

When Naruto had settled his bill with the proprietor of Ichiraku Ramen and continued on his way, made his move. He wanted to do more than play today since he'd recently been informed that come January, he'd be attending the Academy rather than being exclusively trained by Ebisu as he had been for the last couple of years. While - as he'd been repeatedly informed - that was a good thing, he was still very nervous. Naruto had already attended the Academy, and would therefore know what to expect and be able to tell him.

Naruto had taught him a great deal over the last several months, including the fact that there was no shortcut to becoming Hokage. Those who try to take what they see as the easy way to he Hokage's hat more often than not get hurt or killed. That had been true in the days of Senju Hashirama, and it was true now. The road to becoming Hokage was a long and hard one, and the Academy was one of the steps along the way.

With a cry of "Hey Boss!" he rounded the corner after Naruto. Perhaps after they got all of the serious stuff out of the way, they could play Ninja. He learned some of the coolest stuff while playing Ninja, like the Oiroke Jutsu.

* * *

Naruto had not been having a very good day. It had all started early in the morning when he'd decided to empty out his closet before training because it was looking a little full. After clearing out all of the trash, he started pulling out the clothing to check and see what fit and what didn't. The stuff that didn't would be going to the orphanage's charity bin which had been where he had gotten a great deal of his clothes before the Academy. Usually, he wore his clothes out before he outgrew them but, there was some stuff that had been in the back of the closet for a long time.

It had been while he had been doing this cleaning that he had found the sandals buried at the back of the closet underneath an old shirt. They were much too small for him now, as his feet had grown a couple of sizes in the past year, and he couldn't have worn them again even if he had wanted to. Not that he'd ever wanted to see them again much less wear them. The first thing he noticed about them when he finally processed what he was looking at was the fact that they still smelled faintly of old blood.

His first thought had been to throw them away and forget about them bu,t years of conditioning had kept him from throwing away anything that could potentially be useful. He couldn't think of how they would be useful though, they didn't fit, were no good for traps, and brought back memories he would rather have stayed buried. In the end, figuring that they'd be useful for someone else, he'd dumped them in the orphanage pile.

To make matters worse, training that day had gone abysmally as usual. The team building exercises were little more than a farce as neither Sasuke nor Sakura had wanted to work with him, and frankly the only reason he'd been willing to work with them was because it was his duty. Had they been out in the field, he wouldn't have left them behind but, he wasn't certain that they wouldn't leave him behind. The moniker of "Team" was a sad joke when it came to their group. Sasuke had wanted to do everything by himself, and Sakura had gone along with Sasuke whom she was completely obsessed over.

Taijutsu training had followed the failed team-building exercise which had even Kakashi about ready to scream in frustration. The less said about that, the better. Sasuke was good at Taijutsu, nearly at Suzume's level, and therefore this team's Taijutsu specialist. Taijutsu most definitely wasn't his own specialty however. He could do the standard Academy form thanks to Tetsuo-sensei but, when he was forced to fight, he usually went with a style that worked for him which Tetsuo-sensei constantly lamented over, calling it a combination between the Academy form and a bar brawl without the bar. Kakashi wasn't too happy with his style either but, had remarked that it seemed surprisingly effective for it's purposes and would be much better if he worked on his speed. In contrast to Sasuke's excellent example of a bastardized version of the Uchiha fighting style, and his rather unorthodox style, Sakura's style was textbook perfect Academy, and a rather weak example of it at that.

Once again, Kakashi had been forced to attempt to begin to deal with Sakura's inadequacies, and therefore had set him and Sasuke to sparring once more. He hated sparring with Sasuke. No matter what he did, even if he won the match, Sasuke would accuse him of holding back and get upset. The thing was, he hadn't really been holding back. He'd perform much better in a real battle situation when he was pumped up on adrenaline and whatnot and actually aiming to kill but, for training purposes, he wasn't holding back. He'd told Sasuke this many times but, the boy refused to believe him. This refusal to believe him always led to an unpleasant argument, and today was no exception.

After the day's training which had left all of them in a foul mood had come a mission. Normally, those weren't too bad even though going from C ranked missions to Ds had practically felt like being demoted but, it seemed that today Kakashi had asked the Missions Assignment Desk to pick the worst one possible in order to drive his team together through shared trauma. If that had been what Kakashi had been up to when he'd selected the mission, his plan had backfired spectacularly however as babysitting a spoiled two year-old who had only just begun potty training couldn't come close to comparing to watching comrades get killed, or coming home to discover that your entire family has been murdered by your older brother on the trauma scale.

After the mission was over, he'd gone home and gathered up the orphanage charity pile he'd set aside that morning, being careful to place the sandals where he couldn't see them, and hauled it over to the Orphanage. The Orphanage itself brought back bad memories of a different sort. While he hadn't been abused there, he had been isolated, and had many painful memories of being alone despite the fact that he'd been surrounded by other children.

He'd been about to dump the pile of clothes into the charity bin when one of the staff came over and took it from him looking at him suspiciously the entire time. This was par for the course for one of them however, since they had constantly blamed him for crap he hadn't done while he'd been living here, and looked about ready to accuse him of something even now. After carefully examining each article of clothing, the woman either rejected it or neatly folded it and put it in a pile. Everything would have been fine, if she hadn't put the damn sandals on top of the pile, adding those memories to the unpleasant memories that he associated with this place.

He didn't say anything as he left though, it'd just make things worse if he did.

He'd been on his way back home from the orphanage when old man Teuchi had called out to him. He liked Teuchi. The man had been nice to him, and had served him for as long as he could remember, even back before Iruka had started treating him to ramen. He remembered Iruka's slight surprise over the fact that he already knew the place when he had taken him here for the first time. He shouldn't have been so startled that he knew this place, considering how well known it was. Maybe it had been surprise over the fact that Teuchi had served him without fuss, unlike most restaurant owners in Konoha who either kicked him out or served him last.

Teuchi had given him a sympathetic ear, some good advice, and a free bowl of ramen. All three of these worked towards picking his mood up significantly. His mood raised even more after he'd finished his meal and heard Konohamaru call out to him. Konohamaru was a good kid who always brightened what would have otherwise been a dull day.

**Edited 11-10-12**


	4. Wave: Predeparture

Hatake Kakashi sighed. It had been over four and a half months since he'd gotten his team, and throughout that entire time, it had refused to bond into something resembling a cohesive whole, or at the very least, something resembling his second Genin team which had been somewhat unbalanced yet still managed to work somehow, not letting their frequent arguments get in the way of their missions.

For some strange reason, it wasn't a well known fact that he had been the only survivor of two teams under Minato-sensei. When he was five, he and a pair of ten year-olds had been given to Minato-sensei who had been in his late teens at the time to be his first Genin team. Eight months after their graduation, Minato-sensei had entered them in the Chunin Exams to see what they were up against, and hopefully do much better next time. He and his team did well enough back then but, he had been the only one on the team to make Chunin. Before they could get another chance at a promotion, his teammates had been killed in the war on what had been supposed to be a routine mission when a well-hidden trap had gone off catching his two teammates in it.

For the next few years after that, it had been just him and Minato-sensei. When he was nine, Minato had taken on a pair of Academy graduates who were his own age in spite of his protests. They became Team 7, and they had stayed together even after the other two had become Chunin as well. In the end, it had taken death to separate them. First came Obito's when the other boy had died saving his life. Then came Rin's when he couldn't see any other way out of the situation they were in and had fully expected to join her soon. Then came Minato-sensei's on that dark night when the Kyuubi had been unleashed upon the village.

In the early days after Rin and Obito had been put on the team, things had been somewhat strained. He'd been the aloof one much like Sasuke because he'd closed himself off to just about everyone except Minato-sensei after his father had died. Rin had been the one with the crush on the aloof one, much like Sakura was now, and Obito had been the one to ease the tension of difficult missions with humor that was both intentional and unintentional. Eventually, after a great deal of struggle, they had found balance, and had even become friends before it all ended.

With this team however, there wasn't even the precarious balance his Team 7 had had in the beginning when he had viewed Obito and Rin as a pair of interlopers who were taking Minato-sensei's attention away from him. While his students could now perform the team formations flawlessly, and complete group tasks when ordered to do so, there was something completely missing, and he knew exactly what it was. There was no laughter, no joy, not even a vague sense of camaraderie, earned through shared trials or otherwise. While there was a "Kakashi" and a "Rin", there was no "Obito" to brighten the day and make them stop taking themselves so seriously. In fact, the teammate most likely to have been the one to provide good cheer had been in a foul and surly mood for several months, and was starting to show signs of extreme restlessness.

He could understand Naruto's restlessness, as he was feeling it too. He hadn't been this inactive in a long time, and hadn't stayed within the boundaries of Konoha for this long in years, and the last time he'd done so had been because he'd been dragged back to the village mostly dead and had needed a long time to recuperate. With Naruto going completely stir-crazy, odds were that there would be no meaningful progress anytime soon.

Perhaps, what the entire team needed was to get away from it all. A change of scenery would do them some good, and give them a chance at a fresh start. In peacetime, a C rank was practically a paid vacation, and a vacation was exactly what this team needed. Naruto had taken C ranks before so, there was a good chance that the Hokage would allow his team to take one now, despite how recently two of his students had graduated, as there was usually at least a six month wait before C ranks were handed out to rookie teams.

With his mind made up, he resolved to request a C rank after the team's current mission ended. Now to catch that stupid cat. Why had he signed the team up for this one? Oh yeah, shared trauma, which was rather pointless since both Sasuke and Naruto had experienced worse, much, much worse. He winced as a particularly nasty swear word came in over his radio headset. Great. The perpetual argument between Sasuke and Naruto had already started, and it wasn't the nice friendly kind between "rivals" like the ones he and Obito used to have. How the hell they managed to successfully complete missions while tearing at each-other's throats, he didn't know.

* * *

Naruto stared at Kakashi in barely restrained shock as the man requested a C rank mission. While the opportunity to get out of the village was appreciated since he'd been feeling boxed in for a while, he had to wonder what the man had been thinking. Tetsuo-sensei had waited almost a year before requesting a C rank for his old team because he'd wanted to make sure that the team could work almost seamlessly as a whole before he took them outside the village and into potential danger. What happened in River Country was another story entirely, but...

The dynamic on this team, to put it mildly, sucked however. They were worse than a team that consisted of members of clans that were going through a three-way feud. If there was some sort of incident, there was a good chance that all of the cooperative team training that they had done would go flying out the window. Based on his attitude and past behaviour, Sasuke would more than likely race into the fray and face it head on without pausing to consider the danger or even a possible plan while Sakura screamed for him to save her, and he'd probably be forced to rescue them both, if Kakashi wasn't forced to rescue all three of them that is.

Fortunately, things didn't usually go wrong on C-Ranks during peacetime, and they usually ended up being more of an advanced training trip for Genin, the equivalent of D ranks for Chunin, and something like a milk run for Jounin. Unfortunately for him and his team however, the Chunin always got first pick and took all of the better missions, leaving the more than slightly sucky ones to the more experienced Genin teams who came in to get what was left over. As a general rule of thumb, Jounin escorted princesses, Chunin escorted merchants, and Genin escorted brats.

For some reason that probably had to do with the fact that the tobacco in his pipe didn't exactly smell like tobacco, the Hokage complied with Kakashi's request, and he was now stuck on a "Last pick of the day" mission, which he just knew was going to royally suck since both all of the Chunin and the other Genin teams who'd dropped by earlier had already rejected it. Great. Things just kept getting better and better. Well, there was one high point of the mission, and that was that he'd be able to get a chance see where his mother was born, or rather the ruins of the village in which his mother had been born. Wave had once been Whirlpool before it had been reorganized following the invasion during the Second War, and what was left of Uzushiogakure was somewhere in that tiny country.

He hadn't really been expecting much when it came to the person that his team was going to escort, and even those lowered expectations hadn't been met. When the old man walked in and started insulting everybody, he just knew that he was going to be_ that _kind of drunk. Ninja often got stuck with two kinds of drunk: 1. The overly friendly kind of drunk that was a constant annoyance, and 2. The less than friendly kind that was a constant test of one's self control. As they say however, the customer is always right, and if you go killing the customers for pissing you off, they'll start taking their money elsewhere, and you'll start starving because you'll be out of business.

After being put on a "last pick of the day" mission and meeting his drunken client it was only natural that he'd been in a decidedly homicidal mood when he went home to pack. If it hadn't been for Suzume teaching him how to make storage seals, choosing what to bring with him would have been a much more difficult decision. Aside from his storage seals and explosive tags, he was pretty much hopeless at seals. Sure, he could recognize them for what they were, and make an educated guess at their purpose but, making them himself was almost completely beyond him. It had been through sheer repetition that he had become as proficient at the seals he was good at making as he was.

Once he was done packing and hiding his valuables in case Satoshi dropped by while he was away, he left his apartment key, rooftop greenhouse key, and the list of trap locations with Suzume so she could tend to his plants while he was gone. The reason he'd chosen Suzume was because he was reasonably certain that with her, he would come back to find everything where he left it. With Satoshi, he'd be spending his mission pay getting his more important belongings out of hock, as the boy still hadn't learned his lesson and had to be a gambling-addicted kleptomaniac or something. With Tetsuo-sensei, he'd probably come home to find that the man had taken the opportunity to retaliate for one of his more good-natured pranks. He'd been stuck with purple hair for a week after the last time Tetsuo-sensei had gotten back at him for a prank.

* * *

Sasuke growled as he packed for his mission, not in the least bit happy with the situation. Since they would be leaving bright and early the next morning, he wouldn't have time to do it then. He was going on his first C ranked mission and, while that would normally be considered a good thing as it was a sign that he was moving up in the world - if only very slightly -, he was only going because Kakashi thought that He was bored. Contrary to the way things should be, he wasn't taking a more difficult mission on the basis of his own merit but because, Kakashi had wanted to please That Boy.

He had worked hard for years, trained for endless hours, studied for days on end, and, in under an hour, That Boy came along and made a mockery of everything he'd worked for, and showed him how little he had gained through his efforts. What was worse was that That Boy constantly refused to give him his all so he could grow stronger, surpass him, and prove his superiority. Despite all of his attempts to get him to do otherwise, That Boy refused to take him seriously, treating him like he was something to play with to fill the empty hours while he was held back. To add insult to injury, every time That Boy held back against him, he would make some stupid excuse for why he hadn't taken him seriously, just like he used to do back at the Academy.

Since they were usually about him when he was in the vicinity and often brought up things he didn't want to think about, he usually ignored the whispers around town. But, sometime around January, he'd heard the same thing being whispered over and over by the shinobi he'd passed, something that, rather than being about him as usual, was about That Boy. For several weeks, he had heard constant repetitions of "Why isn't he in the Chunin Exams?", and ever since the Chunin Exams had completely passed until July, he'd been hearing "He should be a Chunin already".

This of course was all Kakashi's fault. The whispers, the fact that That Boy was playing with him, the insults to his pride, everything. For whatever reason, Kakashi was holding That Boy back, and he was stuck paying for it.

* * *

Sakura brushed her hair before bed. She was exceedingly nervous about the mission that was ahead of her. While it wouldn't be her first time outside of Konoha, it would be her first time as a ninja, and her first time in a foreign country, and she'd be going there there with Naruto. While they were gone, there would only be Sasuke and Kakashi there to save her should Naruto finally snap like he had been looking like he was about to do for months. Naruto had apologized for the threat he'd made shortly after they became teammates, and told her that he would never harm his comrades but still, the fear was there.

She had read the statistics on shinobi who had suffered a break in the field and attacked everyone around them instead of just the enemy. Being a ninja was a high-risk, and extremely stressful job which came with a burnout rate that was much higher than in just about every other career field. The number of psychotic breaks suffered by shinobi were proportionately higher as well.

Over the last few months she had also read up on ways to detect the signs that a shinobi was under an unusually high amount of pressure and therefore at risk of suffering a psychotic break. Naruto was displaying several of these signs, and had been displaying them for as long as he'd been on the team. While snappishness by itself was considered a minor character flaw, snappishness combined with extreme irritability and restlessness were warning signs of something even more serious. Naruto may have promised never to harm her or any of his other comrades but, that was no guarantee. He had snapped before, and he could do it again at any time, and she could quite easily be one of the casualties due to proximity.

After she finished brushing her hair, she checked her pack once more. She had packed it according to the Academy guide so, it should be fine but, it was something to do to keep her mind off...other things. After she finished checking her pack, she climbed under the covers of her bed and hoped she would get at least some sleep before she was due to leave for her first C-Ranked mission.

* * *

Tazuna gulped down his drink, hoping to drown out the overwhelming feeling of guilt he was currently experiencing. While he had never been a shinobi, his Uzumaki cousin on his mother's side had been, and he had learned some things from the older boy before he had died on a mission. One of the things he'd learned that had stuck with him over the years was how missions were handed out. When he'd fudged the mission ranking on his request, he had fully expected to get a team of Chunin. C-Ranks were usually reserved for Chunin, and only after the Chunin had made their pick were any remaining C ranks given to the more experienced Genin teams.

Instead of being given a team of Chunin who might've been able to deal with Gato's mercenaries in a pinch, he'd been given a Genin team that looked as if it had just graduated from the Academy. While a Genin team had a Jounin on it, which would normally be a plus since Jounin were rumored to be worth ten Chunin, the man would be handicapped by his need to protect his Genin, and wouldn't nearly be as effective as he would otherwise have been. This was especially bad in this situation because, the unsuspecting team would be walking into a great deal more danger than they signed up for. It was too late to turn back now however, what was done was done. If he went back and admitted his lie, he and his people would not get the help they needed, and there was a possibility that he would become a guest of the Torture and Interrogations department, as shinobi villages didn't take too kindly to people deliberately misranking their missions, and tended to become suspicious of their motives for doing so.

He had come to Konoha because they had once been an ally and, in hindsight, that had made his betrayal only that much worse. So, he drank to forget the guilt of his actions as well as the worry over what would happen to his family and friends if help didn't come.

**Edited 11-10-12**


	5. Wave: Shinobi Sign Language

The team had been several hours out when the first bit of trouble began. When the fighting started, Sasuke had raced headlong into danger without a plan after Kakashi had Kawarimi'd out just as Naruto had expected he would, and Sakura held back too frightened to scream. As he'd half expected he would have to, Naruto had been forced to come up with a plan on the fly to deal with this. Eventually, he and Sasuke who had been pretty much acting on his own while he compensated had brought the two renegade Chunin down, and Kakashi had learned who their target was.

When Kakashi had confronted Tazuna about his deception regarding the mission's actual difficulty, Tazuna had informed him that Wave had been virtually taken over by a shipping magnate who had bought up all of the ports, and that he was a threat to the man's rule because he'd been building a bridge to the mainland that he had refused to sell. The shipping magnate whose name was Gato had arranged to have him killed in hopes of forcing his heirs to sell his shares in a bridge that he actually pretty much owned in name alone, as he had contractually promised all of the shares to the workers after the completion of the bridge in exchange for their work, as he had only been able to pay them very little in the way of wages.

Honestly, thanks to the incident with the "Demon brothers", Naruto's first instinct upon hearing this had been to turn back but, he knew that he couldn't turn his back on his mother's former homeland and say "Well, the mission's beyond my paygrade, so bye". While he had been with Tetsuo-sensei, the man had made him read the newspaper every morning in order to improve his reading skills and make him get into the habit of keeping himself up to date on current events, which he had previously been almost completely oblivious to. While reading the paper, he had occasionally come across stories about stalled investigations into Gato's businesses, including a recent article about a minor port town in the land of Tea that the man had recently bought outright. While reading these stories, he had read between the lines as Tetsuo-sensei had taught him to, and he had come to the conclusion that the man was a complete jerk who destroyed every place in which he set up business. Apparently, his mother's former homeland was next on the list.

So, when Kakashi actually took a vote rather than unilaterally deciding on their course of action as a Jounin in charge of a team of Genin was supposed to do, he found himself voting to continue onward. Even if it hadn't been his mother's homeland, he would have wanted to do something about what was going on there. If people like Gato were allowed to go unchecked, they ended up causing trouble in one's own back yard rather than the neighbor's, and Wave was pretty damn close to Fire Country. Close enough to build a bridge to in fact.

He would have to start planning how he would be dealing with what lay in wait for him and his team on the road ahead soon. He was best at planning on the fly but, he wasn't too bad at long-range planning either. Tetsuo-sensei had taught him how to use his skill in planning pranks to plan battles beforehand, and that had helped him greatly in the past when dealing with bandits. While no plan survived contact with the enemy, the general shape of the plan usually did. And, if he had a general idea where his teammates would be ahead of time, he would have a general idea as to where on the battlefield to set up traps on the fly if he got the opportunity. It wouldn't do to catch your teammates in traps meant for the enemy after-all.

The kind of battle where he would have to fight his way through completely capable opponents because he hadn't been able to set any traps up beforehand was his least favorite kind of fight. Beggars can't be choosers, and it was going to be the sort of fight he and his team were going to be engaged in when the next ninja came after Tazuna's head however.

He had been right back at the Mission Assignment desk, this mission was going to suck. Royally.

* * *

Even though it was well out of his way, Haku had made it a point to pass by this place whenever he was in Wave. Zabuza had shown it to him years ago when they had passed through the small island country on the way to the mainland when they had fled from Kiri after the failed coup. To Zabuza, this place had been a reminder of how greatness could fall with few to mark its passing. To him though, this place had held a haunting and melancholy beauty that had spoken of how quickly things could end when you least expect them to. Though some household goods still remained mouldering in homes that had not been lived in in decades, time and rain had washed away all of the blood and most of the memories of this place. And now, pretty much all that was left to mark the existence of the once proud Uzushiogakure was a series of partially cannibalized ruins that stretched down to the sea.

He could not stay here long this time however because, their target was due to arrive in Wave soon, and he and Zabuza were going to intercept him before he reached his home. Despite their employer's suggestions, they would not be attacking the target's family unless it became absolutely necessary to do so. One, it had not been included in their contract, and Two, as well as being wrong for several reasons, it was also the sort of action that would breed ill-will amongst the locals, which would in turn make them more willing to cooperate with any Hunter Nin who might have picked up their trail.

As long as he and Zabuza left the locals alone, the locals would pretty much ignore their presence. That was the usual arrangement that people outside of the hidden villages tended to have with missing-nin unless the nuke-nin in question went and started making trouble. There were more than enough problems in life without attracting attention to oneself by turning someone who was probably only rogue due to some political issue over to the authorities. If they weren't hurting anybody, it usually wasn't worth the trouble.

"Staring at the ruins again?" Zabuza asked, when he finally rejoined him.

"I was Zabuza-sama." he replied as he picked up his mask and equipment pouch and prepared to depart.

"I honestly don't know what you see in them." Zabuza muttered as he checked his own equipment, not that there was much of it, because times had gotten a little tough lately, and it was rather difficult to find a reasonably priced supplier who would sell to missing-nin without turning them in.

As soon as they were ready to go, they headed to the pre-selected ambush point and settled down for what could be a long wait. Most of the time on these types of missions, there was alot of "hurry up and wait", as targets had sometimes passed by ninja who had based the timing of their ambush on their target's ETA and delayed arriving accordingly only to find that the target in question had already passed through the pre-selected zone. Therefore, it was always prudent to arrive early to an ambush in case the target arrived earlier than expected.

While he waited for the target to show, he killed some time by feeding Yuki, who was feeling restless at being cooped up in a tiny cage rather than in the small pen he'd built for the rabbit when they had arrived in Wave a couple weeks back. When the time came, Yuki would be released for Zabuza-sama to switch with if necessary. Until then, the rabbit was both his pet and his responsibility.

* * *

Kakashi sighed as he watched his team who were bickering once more as they trailed behind him. Naruto had attempted to hold a silent conversation with his teammates, and became frustrated when they didn't understand, or rather when Sakura hadn't understood and Sasuke had refused to respond. Over the decades, shinobi hand signs had evolved into a separate language that was practically every ninja's second language. As well as the universal shinobi language that was most frequently used on joint missions, each village had its own language that had developed from their standard hand signs, and just about every clan had created its own dialect. When a civilian born or raised shinobi learned the language both universal and local from their teammates, they usually picked up inflections and sign variations from the dominant clan on the team. The dominant clan on Naruto's team, which was more of a family actually, had been the Shimura, which made Naruto's distinct Uchiha accent all the more puzzling.

Rather than attempting to chat without the sensei overhearing as most Genin tried to do at some point during their careers, Naruto had been trying to relay a slightly complicated battle plan that had involved team positions to the rest of the team. As far as he was concerned, Naruto had been perfectly intelligible despite his use of several unconventional signs, including a few slightly vulgar ones which were almost exclusively used by one of Konoha's street gangs. Sakura had not understood him at all however and, after initially giving him a briefly puzzled look, Sasuke had refused to respond when Naruto had asked him a couple questions about his preferred range of combat in order to refine his plan.

After failing to receive the response he'd expected Naruto had snapped at the other two, which had led to an argument, which had somehow led to Naruto finally losing his last shred of patience with Sakura and loudly listing what were in his opinion every last one of Sakura's failings, which had led to a vicious row between the two of them that had eventually deescalated to the usual bickering, except that Sakura was now in the mix rather than silently hanging back and occasionally chiming in her support for Sasuke like she usually did.

If this continued, he might have to let Sasuke and Sakura go. He may be the only person in the village who could teach Sasuke how to use his sharingan if or when it finally manifested but, he didn't really have to be the boy's teacher full time to do so. More than enough Jounin and Tokubetsu Jounin had made apprenticeship offers for the boy, so it wasn't like the Uchiha would go without being trained in everything else. Sasuke seemed to do better with one on one training anyway. He also knew a pretty good "by the book" Tokubetsu Jounin who might like to have Sakura, since he now had some free time on his hands because his student was attending the Academy. The girl could be trained to be a private tutor or an Academy Instructor, since she seemed to know all of the books by heart and seemed to take great pleasure in imparting that knowledge.

* * *

As he walked in formation with his "team" Sasuke watched Kakashi and That Boy communicate. The argument they'd been engaged in earlier had turned to cold silence after That Boy and Sakura finished snipping at each-other after That Boy criticized Sakura's textbook perfect performance in everything she did, and told her that she was quite likely going to get herself killed by a ninja who had bought the Academy texts off the black market if she continued to religiously adhere to the Academy curriculum rather than develop her own style. Now, Kakashi and That Boy were holding a conversation completely in hand signs. While this normally wouldn't be of interest to him, he had noticed that the two of them were using a number of signs that had been exclusively used internally within his clan throughout the conversation.

_Where did you learn? _he finally signed to the two when his curiosity had gotten the best of him. He could tell that he was seriously rusty but then again, he hadn't been able to communicate this way with anyone in years.

Kakashi replied with what was obviously a personal call sign, since the man couldn't possibly have learned the Uchiha signs from a piece of eyewear. He wasn't familiar with that call sign however but, then again, he hadn't known the call signs of everyone in the clan. That Boy signed back _Older boy show once. Watch people's hands, watch police, so you know when to run. _

He'd learned the Uchiha signs just by watching? And, now that he thought about it, what the hell had he been running from the police for?

_Why you not answer earlier? _That Boy signed, still upset at his prior lack of response.

The reason he hadn't answered That Boy earlier had been out of embarrassment, not that he'd ever tell him. He hadn't communicated this way for years, and hadn't been all that fluent as he'd only been learning for about a year or so when he stopped. Naturally, he'd forgotten a number of the signs over the years since he'd had no-one to talk to since he was eight, and hadn't needed anything more than the standard signs that were taught in the Academy since then.

As if just to show how much better he was, That Boy had of course revealed that he was extremely fluent, and had an idiomatic grasp of the language. When he'd realized he'd only partially understood what That Boy had been saying, and that he'd forgotten the sign for "close to mid-range", he had decided to remain silent, rather than reveal his ignorance. He would of course continue to remain silent on that matter as revealing his ignorance would only cause him even greater embarrassment now.

* * *

Sakura watched Sasuke, Kakashi and Naruto communicate and felt a little jealous over the fact that she was being left out once more. When Naruto had tried to communicate with her earlier, it had taken her a full minute to even realize that that had been what he was doing. It had been the attack, defend, and location signs that she'd learned at the Academy that had finally clued her in. Ino-pig had started to teach her some sort of language that involved the Academy hand signs years ago but, she had quit when they had decided to become rivals. She still remembered some signs like flower and tree though, none of which Naruto had used.

After a while, Sasuke stopped communicating, and nothing Naruto did would get him signing again. Eventually, Naruto gave up. After Naruto gave up on Sasuke, Kakashi started a private conversation with Naruto, and she understood absolutely none of it. After a long period of silent communication, Kakashi looked back at her, and started signing something. Naruto looked upset, and signed something back. Kakashi replied by repeating what he'd signed earlier. Looking rather put upon, Naruto turned and walked back to her, muttering under his breath the entire time.

"What signs do you know?" Naruto snapped when he reached her.

She went through all of the Academy signs, starting with the twelve basic hand-seals used in Jutsu and continuing through the ones meant to alert someone to the presence of the enemy or convey the most basic elements for a plan of attack (namely: a set of numbers, a distance indicator, centimeters, meters, kilometers, the cardinal directions, over there, wait for time interval of x, hours, minutes, seconds, at x time, hide, defend, retreat, and attack).

"Crap." Naruto moaned. "I've really got my work cut out for me."

Did Naruto mean what she thought he meant?

Naruto looked around, but still seemed hesitant for some reason. Kakashi signed an affirmative, and he relaxed slightly.

"Okay, here are the basic kana..." Naruto said as he began a series of 48 signs...

**Edited 11-10-12**


	6. Wave: Club Pins and Fights

Sasuke had been completely amazed by the sight of the incomplete bridge that would soon connect Wave to the mainland and therefore had had a hard time hiding his reaction to that amazement. He succeeded however if only just. A good shinobi never showed his emotions, and he was determined to be an even better shinobi than That Man had been. Upon first catching sight of the bridge, Sakura had gasped in amazement and quietly complimented Tazuna. That Boy however...

"Damn it! Why didn't I think of that earlier?" That Boy grumbled before digging in his pack and pulling out a shirt that was a shade of orange that was almost brown.

"Sasuke, take that shirt off." That Boy said.

"Why?" he asked.

"Other than the old saying "If you see a fan, go for the eyes"?" That Boy replied. "I don't want the enemy to know that there's another prize on the team, which will happen if you drop that pack of yours. You're still small enough to be portable, and almost of breeding age, which means you'll fetch a good price on the black market. Tetsuo-sensei nearly got himself killed last year recovering a girl from one of the lesser clans, and we don't need a problem like that on top of all the problems this mission already has."

Seeing that his teammate's logic was sound in this instance, he quickly pulled his shirt off and accepted the orange one that That Boy had offered even though it wasn't his favorite color. He'd heard the horror stories when he was little, and they'd given him nightmares. Back before the massacre, his elder cousins had delighted in telling him stories of Uchiha being blinded in battle, and of Uchiha children being stolen in the night. Despite the fact that he didn't have a clan to protect him and retrieve him should he be taken anymore, he had not even once considered the possibility of either happening to him while on this mission. That Boy who had never had a clan or a bloodline, and had never faced the possibility of such things happening to him and therefore should be mostly unaware of the risk obviously had however.

As he carefully folded his shirt making sure the Uchiha clan symbol was both on the outside and unfolded and put it in his pack, That Boy held his hand out to Sakura expectantly...

"What?" Sakura finally asked when That Boy made an impatient gimme gesture.

"Fanclub pin." That boy said, as he made the Uchiha Clan general call sign, obviously still trying to teach Sakura the language, though why he had made that sign instead of the sign for pin, he didn't know.

The girl rather reluctantly pulled something out of one of the hidden pockets on her dress and handed it to That Boy, looking very unhappy to be doing so.

"Where the hell did you get this? This thing is a collector's item!" That boy said as he turned the object over in his hands.

"My grandmother's stuff. Mom let me have it after she died." The girl said in a mumble, looking slightly embarrassed.

"What is it?" he asked.

"One of the original Uchiha Izuna fanclub pins from back before the Founding. You can tell by the craftsmanship that indicates that it comes from the Land of Iron rather than Konoha and the odd marking on the back. The ones for the Madara fanclub had a different marking, and the ones for your fanclub are Konoha made, of a cheaper metal, and don't have a marking. I started collecting the damn things after I got a Madara pin from Tetsuo-sensei for my eleventh birthday along with a copy of his trap book. I have no idea where he got it though because, the people who kept them all these years generally aren't willing to part with them since they're practically family heirlooms at this point." That Boy said as he handed it to him. "It'll be far less obvious than that giant fan on your back, but still allow you to hold to the tradition of wearing your clan standard into battle. Pin it to your collar."

"How do you know about that tradition?" he asked as he complied, a little dubiously, considering the origins of the pin.

"You are currently wearing the Uzumaki spiral." Naruto said as he pointed to a design that was of a blood red shinobi spiral that looked to be set into a target of some sort that was on the right sleeve of the shirt he was wearing .

"You do realize Naruto that by allowing Sasuke to wear your clan symbol, you've adopted him into your clan, don't you?" Kakashi called over lazily from the back of the boat.

"I WHAT?" That Boy yelled.

* * *

Momochi Zabuza resisted the urge to shift impatiently. After hours and hours of waiting, his target was - very slowly in his opinion - coming up the road with his escort. He counted four, three Genin and a very familiar looking silver haired Jounin. As he looked over the team that was approaching, he assessed his opponents. He would have to watch out for the pink haired one, as unusual hair colors were almost always a sign of a Kekkei Genkai of some sort. He might have to watch out for the blond one as well, considering the facial markings that looked to have been tattooed onto his cheeks, since such tattoos on kids that age were a sign of them belonging to a ninja clan. The black haired one was of least concern.

As he was sizing up his opponents, the blond haired one started sniffing the air, and turned slightly in his direction. The boy hadn't been obvious about it but, he'd seen that method of tracking often enough to recognize it. He'd encountered members of a tattooed ninja clan in Konoha whose behavior matched that of the boy a number of times before, and had barely escaped with his life each time he'd done so. The boy was obviously an Inuzuka, though why he didn't have a dog with him...perhaps it was ill and had to be left at home.

As he watched, the blond Inuzuka's hand moved toward the kunai pouch that had been strapped to his leg.

He'd been made.

He quickly switched places with Haku's rabbit an instant before the kunai went sailing through the spot he'd previously occupied. The team went to investigate immediately afterward, and only found the distraction.

"Naruto! Why did you attack that poor defenseless rabbit?" the pink haired girl asked, sounding horrified.

"It smells like people." the unfortunately named Inuzuka replied.

Knowing that he'd lost the advantage of surprise, he prepared to make his attack. Despite the natures of the man's students, his main opponent would be Sharingan Kakashi the Copy Ninja. In a battle such as the upcoming one the Genin would be little more than a distraction. Fortunately for him, the Genin would be a distraction to the Hatake as well, a distraction he'd be forced to protect, tipping the balance in his favor.

It was time for him to make his entrance. A properly dramatic entrance that was made when his opponents were expecting a stealthy attack from behind usually threw his opponents off balance tipping the battle more firmly in his favor. With that in mind, he decided that Dramatic Entrance #6 was best for this situation. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, he sent his sword flying across the clearing that the Hatake and his Genin team were standing in to bury itself in the trunk of a tree and leapt onto the extended handle when it had, landing with his back facing the audience. Based on the reaction of the target and the Genin, his entry had been flawlessly executed. Now for the show...

* * *

Tazuna discreetly checked to make sure he hadn't wet himself. He hadn't. Good. He was glad that was over. It had been a very long time since he'd last had the misfortune of witnessing a ninja battle close up. He had forgotten the sheer terror and confusion that was involved as the impossible happened right in front of one's eyes with potentially deadly results. He hadn't really understood what had been going on, and therefore wouldn't be the best witness to ask if one wanted the story of what had happened during the battle between what were obviously two legendary ninja later.

They'd been walking along the road when the Uzumaki who had been reminding him of his dead cousin the entire trip - _Why oh why had Konoha sent him? _- had suddenly attacked a rabbit out of the blue, saying that it smelled like people. Considering the fact that he'd been sniffing the air like a dog while they'd been in the boat, he shouldn't have been surprised much less doubtful that his sense of smell was that acute but, he still had been. Then, suddenly, there was a flying sword which had nearly taken his head off before it buried itself halfway into a tree. The gray haired guy moved to confront the guy who had jumped on the sword that was now in the tree after that, and the three kids had moved to protect him.

The enemy ninja who was wearing gray button fly pants and cow print arm and leg warmers and had his face covered in bandages jumped onto the water and made a bunch of mist after the gray haired man had pulled up his headband and revealed that he actually had two eyes though the other one didn't match. Then, things got really weird, scary, and dangerous.

Weapons went flying everywhere as the two men repeatedly turned into water, and then the Uzumaki suddenly multiplied and started setting traps everywhere. The black haired boy joined the fray at this point and got injured somehow. At some other point during the battle, he found himself in the bushes while a copy of himself blew up in the enemy ninja's face. Then, the two men who'd started the fight got into some sort of Jutsu contest and started making water dragons that tried to eat each-other or something, and sent water flying everywhere. The battle eventually ended when a Hunter-nin from Kiri showed up, killed the Demon guy who'd apparently gone on a homicidal rampage when he was a kid and killed the entire student body of a school, and left with the body.

Afterward, the gray haired guy collapsed, and the Uzumaki somehow made two of his clones turn into stretchers on which he placed the gray haired guy and the black haired boy.

"You're going to get yourself killed one day if you keep leaping into danger without any forward planning Sasuke." the Uzumaki said as two of his clones carried the stretcher towards the road. "Sometimes doing so is a good thing since if you don't have any plans, nobody can anticipate them but, most of the time it isn't. You're damn lucky that that Zabuza guy had just been messing around with you. You would've been dead otherwise."

And, with that, the battle was completely over, and they made their way to his home and the possibility of a homecooked - if somewhat meager - meal, and some medical attention for the injured members of their party. Fortunately, Tsunami had picked up some top-notch first aid skills thanks to some of the more daring antics of her first husband who had been an adrenaline junkie who had gotten himself killed in a water-skiing accident.

He'd honestly expected the man to die during one of his BASE jumps, and had made several bets to that effect which he had lost. He hadn't been very fond of the man but, Tsunami, who had been young and head-over-heels in love with him, had refused to listen to his advice, and married him anyways. When the man had finally died, he'd left her alone with a newborn Inari and a mountain of debt that had forced her to move back in with him.

Kaiza had been a much better son-in-law, husband, and father, even if he couldn't afford his own home and constantly mooched off of him.

* * *

Sakura was torn between worry for her sensei and worry for Sasuke. Neither of the two had come away from the battle with the missing-nin unscathed. Kakashi-sensei was suffering from a very severe bout of Chakra Exhaustion, and Sasuke had a broken arm and a concussion. As he watched him sleep, Naruto had confided in her that there was a possibility that Kakashi-sensei wouldn't make it through the night.

If it hadn't been for Naruto's quick thinking, there was a good chance that Sasuke would be dead right now instead of merely wounded. Despite the fact that Naruto hated Sasuke and normally didn't want anything to do with him, he had risked his life to save him. When she had asked Naruto why, he'd said "Those who break the rules are trash. Those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash. Sasuke is my teammate, and no matter what I feel about him, I won't leave him behind". She didn't know what to think of that. Naruto hated them, and didn't want to work with them but, would risk his life to save them in a heartbeat. Would she be willing to risk her life to save someone she hated? Would she stand up to a much stronger enemy and use herself as a distraction knowing that there was a good chance she'd die so Ino for instance could get away?

When she was little, she'd wanted to be a ninja like those guys in the animal masks she'd sometimes seen around the village. She had joined the Academy where her motive changed from becoming one of the animal mask people to impressing Ino who had protected her from a group of bullies, and then later changed to impressing Sasuke. When she graduated, neither of them were impressed.

Was this what being a ninja was? Possibly sacrificing yourself for someone you hate so the mission could be completed?

Inside the village, she'd been cool, she'd been awesome, she'd been on the fast track to becoming the future Mrs. Uchiha. People had looked up to her. Outside the village however, she'd been a minor annoyance to the enemy, a bug to be swatted, a bug that would have been swatted if her sensei and her teammates hadn't been there.

Seeing that it was possible, she realized that she didn't want to be crushed or swatted. Right now however, considering the fact that she couldn't even come close to measuring up to Sasuke who was the second weakest member of the team, there was a distinct possibility of that happening.

* * *

Naruto felt slightly worried as he watched Kakashi sleep. While there was a very good chance he'd wake up, there was also a slight possibility that instead of evening out, his breathing would slow, and eventually stop. Severe cases of Chakra Exhaustion like the one Kakashi had were weird like that. While he was currently very, very upset with the man, Kakashi was still on his list of precious people if only just, and he didn't want him to die.

Sasuke had already been seen to. Tazuna's daughter Tsunami who was a very capable woman who apparently knew the correct way to set and splint broken arms, and deal with a concussion had seen to that earlier. Unlike Kakashi, he had little fear that Sasuke's condition would get worse, unless the Uchiha ran off and did something stupid.

All that was left for the team to do now was to rest, guard the house in case Gato had hired someone else, and wait for Kakashi to wake up.

**Edited 11-10-12**


	7. Wave: Musings on Life, The Universe, and

Much to the relief of Naruto who had spent the night keeping vigil at his bedside, Kakashi awoke the next morning. No matter what he felt about them at any given time, the people of Konoha were his responsibility to protect, the ninja of Konoha that he served alongside were his responsibility to bring home, and the people who truly cared about him were his precious people whom he'd do just about anything for. Having any one of them die on his watch while there was something he could have possibly done to prevent it was unacceptable.

He had been very angry with Kakashi for the last several months. The man knew him, knew that he already had a sensei, and yet he still took him despite this. After apologizing for the irresponsible manner in which he had taught him Kage Bunshin two years ago, Kakashi had checked up on him occasionally between missions, and he would say hi to the man every time he saw him around the village, which was most often near the memorial stone which he visited to pay his respects to his mother and the Yondaime before heading over to Yamaguchi and Fujiwara's graves to say hi.

When Kakashi almost died the night before because he had overexerted himself during the battle with that missing-nin from Kiri, he had been feeling scared, and regretful over the fact that they would have parted under such bad terms. Kakashi was one of his precious people, and he was one of the few people who hadn't given him that cold look the first time he met him. His being completely pissed off at the man didn't change that fact. Fortunately, Kakashi had pulled through, and his breathing had stopped being shaky and evened out to a more regular pattern that indicated he was asleep sometime around midnight. He still kept watch afterward just in case, and there had been no other signs of trouble since then, and Kakashi was showing signs of waking up.

As Kakashi was opening his uncovered eye, he went to fetch Sasuke and Sakura who would undoubtedly be happy to see that their sensei had actually woken up, even if Sasuke was currently feeling rather miserable despite the painkillers he'd given him earlier. The danger had passed. Kakashi was aware and moving around, which meant that he would live, though it would take him several days to recover. Soon, the three of them were seated at the man's bedside. As team leader, Kakashi would be the one to give them orders.

"Shit." Kakashi groaned once he was fully aware of his surroundings.

An ominous feeling came over him. That wasn't the "I did something exceedingly dangerous and now I'm paying for it" swear. That was the "Crap, there's a distinct possibility that I royally screwed up." swear. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all.

"What?" he asked, almost dreading the answer because, if Kakashi was so concerned over screwing up, something that was so beyond serious that it wasn't even funny had most likely gone wrong.

"That Hunter nin took the body." Kakashi replied.

He didn't know what the significance of this obviously significant statement was, and he didn't like not knowing. Not knowing meant that you were left out of the loop, which was a dangerous place to be if you were a ninja. As soon as he got back to Konoha, he would have to force himself to sit still long enough to read up on Hunter Ninja and their practices. Making sure he could read properly and know how to research any subject he needed to had been one of the best things Tetsuo-sensei had ever done for him.

"Hunter nin are supposed to dispose of the corpse right there, so foreign ninja can't intercept them and take the body from them in order to learn its secrets." Kakashi continued.

Yeah, he was feeling like swearing too. They had let some two-bit missing-nin pull a con on them, and now they were in serious trouble because of it. That Zabuza guy was going to be coming back, and he'd be pissed as hell when he did. Ninja generally didn't like to lose, and especially didn't like being humiliated in front of a bunch of Genin, or worse, in front of civilians. Zabuza had done both.

"Based on the technique the fake Hunter nin used, and the damage Zabuza took, it will be a several days before he is up and about. We've only got about a week to prepare for his next attack." Kakashi continued, summarizing his estimate of the situation.

A week. Perfect. Now this was his favorite kind of fight. He would have to be careful with any of the traps he made though, as he didn't want the locals stumbling into them and getting themselves hurt. Perhaps something that would be set to only go off at the command of the setter then...

* * *

Inari sat in his room staring at the picture of his father Kaiza. Unlike most times, he wasn't crying, he was thinking. Last night, shortly after Grandfather had returned with the strangers, he had confronted them...

"Gato's too strong. If you stand up to him, you're all going to die." he yelled at the kids who were only a few years older than him, and were about to throw their lives away for nothing.

"If I die, then I die, but at least I go knowing I did my best to help." the blond boy who was helping his mother fix up the dark haired boy said.

"Do you think you're a hero or something? There's no such thing as heroes!" he'd yelled at the boy.

There weren't any heroes. Heroes only lived in fairy tales, and the idiots who thought they were heroes always got themselves killed, leaving those they left behind to try to pick up the pieces.

The blond boy had looked at him and shook his head sadly.

"There are heroes." the blond boy said. "In real life however, the hero doesn't always save everyone, and sometimes the hero's only reward for his actions is to go to the afterlife knowing that he had done his best, and hoping that someone will take up his banner and succeed where he had failed. I myself would rather die trying to save everyone than watch the people around me suffer without doing anything."

Had his father really been a hero rather than a fool? Had his father gone to the afterlife with the same hope? Had he let the man who had vowed to raise him despite the fact that they weren't blood down?

Grandpa had picked his father's banner up when it fell when he continued construction on the bridge despite all of the threats that had been made against him, and was going to pay the ultimate price because of it. Was it worth it though? Last night he would have said that it most definitely was not, and that the way of the world was that the strong crushed the weak, and that Gato was the strong and that anyone who went against him pointlessly wasted their lives. Now though, there was a small niggling doubt, a doubt that had been caused by the last thing the blond boy had said as he was leaving the room.

As he'd turned to run back to his room, the blond boy had said "Evil only flourishes when good men do nothing."

He had been doing nothing for a long time, and had been urging others to do nothing as well. Had he been making Gato strong because of this? Gato hadn't seemed so strong until after dad had died and everyone was afraid to do anything about it.

* * *

Sakura sat there thinking as she tended to Kakashi after Naruto had told her to make herself useful. Unlike most of the time when she had all the free time she wanted to fantasize about becoming Mrs. Uchiha, she had great deal to think about.

Last night, Naruto, who had gotten fed up with her once more, had asked her why she had even wanted to be a ninja in the first place, and she had answered him honestly, though she didn't know why. Instead of laughing at her naive childishness, he'd whistled and said "ANBU? That's one tough goal, you'll probably make it though. You won't catch the Hokage's attention if you keep hanging back and expecting Sasuke to rescue you however".

At this point, she wasn't sure she even wanted to become an ANBU, much less if she still wanted to be a ninja. As she was now, she was weak and could easily be killed if there was no-one to jump in and do her fighting for her. But, Naruto had honestly seemed to believe that she could become one of the village's most elite ninja who were hand-selected by the Hokage to serve him someday if she worked hard at it. He'd even gone so far as to lay out a plan for her to be able to reach her "goal".

Strange, it wasn't until then that she'd realized that she didn't have any goals in life other than to become Mrs. Uchiha. What came after she attained that goal? Babies? And, what else? What would she do to fill her time when Sasuke was out on missions? What would she do if Sasuke died on one? What would there be after Sasuke?

Becoming an ANBU and life after Sasuke weren't the only things she had to think about though. She hadn't known if it was stupidity or courage that had made her do so but, she had asked Naruto why he had killed those two Genin from Iwa. He told her.

It hadn't been because they had blocked his promotion as she'd spent the last several months believing.

If she'd seen two of her classmates, or even any two ninja she'd met say, the week before be killed in front of her, would she do what Naruto had done? Would she lose it so completely that she wouldn't even realize that the people responsible for killing her comrades were dead until long after their broken and bleeding bodies had fallen to the ground?

She had heard so many times that the life of a ninja was one that was filled with pain and death while she was in the Academy but, she truly hadn't begun to realize what that had meant until now. It was too late to turn back however, she'd signed a five-year service agreement when she had "earned" her spot on the team, instead of the one-year provisional agreement that had been recommended. The only way she could get out now is if they kicked her out, and ninja who got kicked out were held in contempt in Konoha. If she were dismissed, she would have to move and leave everything she knew behind if she didn't want to live as an outcast.

* * *

Sasuke too was thinking despite the headache from the concussion but, it wasn't about his goals and ambitions. He'd asked Kakashi where he'd gotten his sharingan eye, and the man had refused to answer. An expression that looked like a cross between guilt and grief crossed what little he could see of the man's face before he'd turned his back to him and dismissed him. Certain that he would know, considering the fact that he seemed to know any number of things he shouldn't, he'd then gone to That Boy for the answers Kakashi had refused to give him. That Boy had indeed known as he'd suspected he would.

"I heard what everyone knows from Tetsuo-sensei." That boy said. "Back during the war, Kakashi was on a team with an Uchiha named Obito. Something went seriously wrong during a mission, and Kakashi came back with the eye, a missing teammate, even more issues than he'd left with, and a new habit that had caused "Obito Time" to be renamed "Kakashi Time"."

Since the clan had been alive at the time and would have demanded the man's head on a plate if that had been what happene, he knew that Kakashi hadn't stolen his teammate's eye. The answer to how he'd gotten it then was that Obito had given it to him.

Why would Obito have done something like that? Why would he give one of his eyes, knowing that he risked never finding the right path on his journey through the afterlife? Kakashi had not even been blood, he'd just been a teammate.

* * *

Kakashi struggled to sit up. It was a difficult task however. He was tired and his muscles refused to cooperate. He needed to get up quickly though. He needed to start training his students for the coming confrontation as soon as possible, which would be just as soon as he could stand with or without assistance. He knew what he needed to start them on since he wouldn't be able to use his Chakra or move around all that much for a while, and frankly he should have started it weeks ago considering the benefits the exercise held for the uninitiated, instead of wasting his time on completely pointless teamwork exercises. Naruto pretty much had this skill mastered already so, he would have to find something else for the boy to do.

He did have a bit of spare testing paper on him that he'd won in a bet. Maybe, he would start training the boy to harness his Chakra Affinity so he could more easily master Elemental Jutsu. He knew that the boy already had a couple Wind Jutsu in his arsenal, and they could become even more powerful were he trained.

With that plan in mind, he lay back down. While it was a good thing to exert oneself, overdoing it was detrimental to one's wellbeing. As he lay there, he speculated on what Minato-sensei's son's elemental affinity would be. Would it be Wind like his father, as the boy's small arsenal of Elemental Jutsu indicated, or would it be Water like his mother? The boy looked like both parents and took after both parents, though he favored his mother in looks and behavior somewhat as that odd verbal tic indicated so, it would be interesting to find out which one he favored in that area.

Unfortunately, even if Naruto possessed the ability, he had absolutely no idea as to how one would go about teaching the boy how to create the Chakra chains that his mother had been able to create which was a pity since Naruto could have used them to hold their opponent down while he beat him up.

**Edited 11-11-12**


	8. Wave: Tree Climbing and Elemental Affini

Naruto stared down at the piece of paper that Kakashi had given him dubiously. Kakashi had decided to test his Elemental Affinity out of the blue that morning. While a ninja could learn Elemental Jutsu that were outside of their affinity, even without knowing one's affinity, Elemental Jutsu that were of one's affinity were usually much easier to learn and that much more potent. Truly mastering one's affinity, especially to the point where one could manipulate Chakra to transform it into that Elemental Nature, and possibly even create new Jutsu took years. Usually, a ninja started mastering their affinity when they made Chunin. Tetsuo-sensei had promised to test him the minute he got his vest, and help him master his affinity as soon as he knew what it was.

Naruto's problem wasn't with any of that, as he'd been dying with curiosity to learn what his affinity was, and didn't think Tetsuo-sensei would mind too much if he took an early peek. The problem he had at the moment was with the Chakra Test Paper itself...

"And tell me again what happens if my affinity is Fire?" he asked hoping that he'd misheard Kakashi when the man had been explaining the different reactions that the special paper had to different Chakra types.

"The paper will burn." Kakashi replied.

Yeah, that's what he thought he heard. The paper would burn, and it would be in his hand when that happened too. Considering the fact that the predominant affinity in Konoha was Fire and the fact that he didn't know who his father was aside from the fact that he'd been a resident of Konoha...

"Don't worry, it's perfectly safe." Kakashi said, trying to reassure him.

It wasn't all that reassuring though.

"How many of these things do you have on you?" he asked.

"A few, why?" Kakashi replied.

"Here Sasuke." he said as he handed his paper to the boy who had been looking at it with a jealous gleam in his eye.

He'd seen the boy using Fire Jutsu with relative ease and, while that could be the result of early training by a Fire aligned family, it was more likely the result of an untested Fire affinity. The instant he'd made his offer, the boy snatched the test paper from him almost greedily, and started to channel Chakra into it as Kakashi had instructed him to do.

CRINKLE. FWOOSH. "Ow! Sonuva...!" STOMP. STOMP. STOMP.

That pretty much had been what he had thought would happen. The double affinity was interesting though. Maybe it was an extra Kekkei Genkai, considering the fact that there were Kekkei Genkai that allowed people to mix two different Elements to create a new "Advanced" Element. Double Kekkei Genkai had shown up in some families on occasion though, usually when you tried to mix two Kekkei Genkai, all you got was a mess. At least, that's what he'd heard happened. He wondered what Fire and Lightning would make, other than a more effective way of destroying things that is.

As soon as the first paper was finally disposed of by the Uchiha, Kakashi offered him a second piece of the test paper to replace the one he'd given to Sasuke. He didn't want to take it though. Watching someone else get burned by one of the things had been enough to make him definitely not want to risk it, rather than be somewhat cautious about doing so.

"Look Naruto, it's perfectly safe." Kakashi said, sounding slightly frustrated. "Your mother's affinity was Water, and therefore there is virtually no chance of you being a Fire affinity since Water is a dominant trait that drowns out Fire roughly 999 times out of a 1000 in such pairings, and there is a very good chance that your father wasn't a Fire affinity anyways."

Why the hell hadn't he said so in the first place? If he'd just explained that earlier, Sasuke wouldn't have had to go through the trauma of having his fingers burned just now, and he wouldn't have had to go through the trauma of watching it happen. Well, at least Sasuke had gotten something out of the experience.

Sighing, he took the paper and channeled Chakra into it. It cut itself in two. Wind. Figured, since the few Wind Jutsu he'd learned had come to him much more easily than the Fire Jutsu he'd dubbed the Arsonist's Best Friend that he'd picked up, and that one was a rather small flame that wasn't nearly as noticeable as the flashier and higher ranking Fire Jutsu that some ninja had a habit of flinging about.

"Well, now that that's out of the way, I may as well start Sasuke and Sakura on their training before I show you the first exercise of your Elemental training." Kakashi said.

Sasuke and Sakura perked up at this slightly, as Kakashi turned his focus on them.

"Today you will be learning to climb trees!" Kakashi said cheerfully.

The instant Kakashi made that announcement, he found himself pitying Sasuke. That had been incredibly mean of the man. Most ninja tended to gather their Chakra by using either the Ram seal or a one-handed variant of it. Sasuke's left arm was broken and in an improvised cast, making the Ram seal - and just about every other seal for that matter - impossible and, he had several burned fingers on the arm that wasn't broken, which would make forming the half-Ram painfully difficult. Not only that but, he was suffering from the aftereffects of a concussion as well.

Kakashi was clearly enjoying the dumbfounded looks his two students were giving him over the fact that they were finally going to learn the tree climbing exercise. Well, as far as he was concerned, it was about damn time. They said that each sensei had their own teaching style but, waiting five months before teaching one of the most basic Chakra control exercises bordered on criminal. He himself had started learning it during his first few days under Tetsuo-sensei.

"You'll be doing it without your hands!" Kakashi said cheerfully in reply to to Sakura's whine of "But I already know how to climb trees!"

Kakashi was definitely enjoying this like the sadistic bastard he was reputed to be. Poor, poor, Sasuke.

"Naruto here will demonstrate." Kakashi said, putting him on the spot.

Great.

Heaving a put upon sigh, he walked up to the nearest tree and started walking up the trunk which was bare of branches for about the first thirty feet or so in a spiral pattern. He then selected a branch that was in full view of the others and walked along its underside, stopping about mid-way. Both Sasuke and Sakura gaped up at him. Sasuke looked jealous of his rather pedestrian ability. Then again, Sasuke always looked either upset or jealous when he did something the other boy hadn't learned yet.

"To do this, you must concentrate your Chakra onto the soles of your feet." Kakashi explained to his students. "Too much and you crack the bark of the tree and fly off. Too little, and you won't stick."

"Use these to mark your progress." Kakashi said as he threw a pair of kunai into the ground in front of Sakura and Sasuke.

Sasuke naturally had a great deal of difficulty with the exercise, which was completely understandable considering the condition he was in. Sakura however...Sakura managed it perfectly the first time. Apparently the girl had near-perfect to perfect Chakra control. The Medical Corps would be drooling over her if they found out. The Medical Corps had suffered a severe drop in enlistment over the last few years because Genjutsu had become a fashionable specialty amongst kunoichi who were much more likely to have the perfect Chakra control necessary for Medical Jutsu than their male counterparts. He knew this because Medical Corps had been after Suzume ever since she'd made Chunin.

"You'd better hide Sakura when we get back to Konoha Kakashi, or the Medical Corps will try to steal her." he said half-jokingly after Sakura had made her way up the tree.

Considering how desperate they were for qualified new recruits, he wouldn't be surprised if that actually happened.

* * *

Sakura stared at Naruto from the high branch she was perched in. With an offhand remark, the boy had handed her an out she could take without disgracing herself or her family should she choose to do so. If she trained as a Medic, she could work in the hospital, as in off the field and away from battle. Medics were highly prized, and retired medics could go into practice as medical doctors after a certain number of years of service as a Medic should they chose to do so. If she became a Medic, she would have the career she needed and the training she needed when she left the ninja life forever.

Becoming a Medic had another potential positive as well. If she decided that she didn't want to completely waste several years of effort she had put into becoming a Kunoichi so far, and wanted to achieve the goal that had gotten her to attend the Academy in the first place, instead of deciding to leave once her five years or however long it took to get her certification as a doctor were up however, Medics would be valued amongst the ANBU as well. Someone would have to make sure the prisoner survived until it was brought in, or patch the team up if things went south. It may as well be her if it was anybody.

Either way, training as a Medic would be useful for her future whichever path she decided to take. That, and it would be useful when she was married to Sasuke, as she had learned that children sometimes got themselves into the serious sort of trouble where seconds could mean the difference between life and death. Statistics for this were especially high in ninja villages where one had the risk of accidentally stabbing oneself with a poisoned weapon or setting off an explosive tag accidentally added on top of the usual risks.

Should she choose to become a Medic on the path towards leaving the ninja life rather than on the path towards staying however, there was a slight hitch to this plan. Either her sensei would have to sign her up for the program if he felt her capable, or she would have to become a Chunin in order to sign herself up if her sensei refused for whatever reason. Since there currently wasn't a surplus of Genin, and the Spring Cycle Class was evenly divisible by three as well, there was a good chance that Kakashi-sensei wouldn't split the team up before they took the Chunin Exams, as Naruto had informed her that they needed a whole team to compete. Either way, the odds that she would have to take the Chunin Exams were high and, if she did, she would have to do her damned hardest to pass, in case Kakashi-sensei refused to sign the forms releasing her from his team.

Either path she chose, her life would not start until after the team entered the Chunin Exams. Until then, she would have to learn all she could of the shinobi arts in order to pass the Exams when the time came. Hopefully, she would be strong enough that she wouldn't be squashed as an afterthought by then.

* * *

Sasuke growled as he tried once more to make his way up the tree. Once again, he didn't make it past a few feet, and most of the distance he'd attained had been more from the momentum he'd built up on the way to the tree. Sakura, who had never done this before, had been able to managed to make her way to the top of her tree perfectly the first time. Kakashi said it was because she had so little Chakra that she was able to control it easily but, he wasn't too sure. He would do this however. He would master this to the point that he was better than That Boy who had climbed his tree with the greatest of ease and hung upside down until Kakashi called him over for some special advanced training.

As he struggled to climb the tree, he tried to figure out whether That Boy had been playing with him or with Kakashi when he'd handed him that test paper. While it had made for a rather vicious prank as he'd gotten his fingers burned, he now knew his Elemental affinity, or affinities rather. It was quite possible that he would not have learned them until much later if That Boy who had already been certain of at least one of his affinities hadn't handed him that paper.

What was That Boy up to? Had That Boy been trying to do him a favor, or was this the start of some twisted new game?

"Relax Sasuke." That Boy called over to him from near where he stood with Kakashi. "It's a whole lot easier when you're not frustrated. You should stop a while, use one of the meditation techniques they taught at the Academy, and try again."

Stop and meditate? What the hell was That Boy playing at?

* * *

"You should use Kage Bunshin on this exercise to get the most out of it." Kakashi said after he'd finished explaining the leaf cutting exercise and its purpose to his student.

"But, Tetsuo-sensei told me not to." Naruto replied.

This reply naturally added to his frustration. Ever since Naruto had become his student, it had been Tetsuo-sensei this, and Tetsuo-sensei that. "But Tetsuo-sensei said..." seemed to be the boy's favorite phrase. Not once had he heard a Kakashi-sensei from the boy. He'd heard a hundred Yes Sirs, but no Yes Kakashi-sensei. He understood that Naruto was upset at being taken from his former sensei but, he would still like at least a little acknowledgment for his role in the boy's life.

"Why did Shimura tell you not to?" he asked, wondering why the man would handicap Naruto's potential progress in such a manner.

Using Kage Bunshin would allow the boy to learn things much faster, especially with the sheer number of Shadow Clones that the boy could create. What would normally take the boy years to learn could be whittled down to mere weeks or even days depending on the number of Kage Bunshin that were used.

Naruto looked embarrassed and slightly guilty for some reason, as if his not being allowed to use Kage Bunshin for training had been his own failing and not his previous teacher's.

"I made them study while I ran off to play once, and Tetsuo-sensei caught me." Naruto replied.

"As long as you are working alongside the Kage Bunshin, it should be fine." he said, resolving to have words with Shimura for hampering his student's progress due to a youthful error.

Naruto gave him a look, but reluctantly complied. Reluctant compliance had been all he'd gotten out of the boy since day one. It was rather disheartening. He wouldn't quit trying however, he'd get through to the boy eventually. He'd made a vow to teach Minato-sensei's son, as Minato-sensei had taught him, and by all of the gods in existence, he would do it, despite the fact that someone had seemed to have gotten there first.

**Edited 11-11-12**


	9. Wave: Meeting and Almost Meeting

While Zabuza was not yet well enough to be up and about, he was well enough that he could be left alone for a few hours without worry, and Haku needed to restock his supply of medicinal herbs. It had been a few days since the fight with the Copy-ninja and his Genin, and the paralysis and Chakra Exhaustion had nearly worn off. Zabuza would need some more bed rest though before he was fully recovered but, in his current condition, he would easily be able to defend himself from any of Gato's two-bit thugs, should they decide to bother him.

After checking on his master, Haku dressed himself in his favorite outfit and prepared to head out. He knew about the comments that were made about the fact that he often dressed like a girl even when he did not need to disguise himself as such, and didn't particularly care. He knew he was a boy no matter how he looked or what he wore, and if he wanted to dress like a girl, that was his prerogative. Besides, this outfit was made from a more comfortable material than the ones he usually wore when there was the possibility of going into battle, and while pink wasn't his favorite color, he wasn't averse to wearing it.

When he made his way to a clearing that he'd noted contained the plants he would need when he'd passed through it earlier, he found a boy lying on the ground asleep, looking as if he had collapsed from exhaustion where he stood, too tired to seek shelter. His first instinct when he'd come across the boy who had been dressed in a dark orange shirt that was decorated with the red spiral he'd seen on the Konoha shinobi uniforms on one of the sleeves, and one of the spiral in a target symbols that he'd seen scattered throughout Uzushigakure's ruins on the other had been to do whatever it took to protect Zabuza-sama. In this case, protecting Zabuza-sama would be to not allow the boy to get away and alert his companions to Zabuza-sama's likely survival if they weren't aware of the possibility already. Instead of killing the boy like he should have done however, he yet again proved that he was too soft to truly be a shinobi and shook him awake.

"You shouldn't be sleeping out here, especially in your weakened condition. You could catch your death of cold. It's still March you know, and a cold snap could come on suddenly..." he said to the boy who had startled awake and scurried backward when he had realized who was shaking him.

"I don't care." the boy said. "I have to train. I have to become stronger than Him."

"I believe that you become truly strong when you have someone precious to protect." he said to the boy.

He knew this to be the truth because he was at his strongest when he was protecting Zabuza-sama. While training was well and good, and training oneself into the ground on occasion built character, there was a point where it was too much, and it looked like the boy had taken it that far. He'd done so himself enough times to know that training to the point of collapse too often was counterproductive and left him weak at times when he'd needed to be strong, strong enough to protect Zabuza-sama.

The boy gave him a strange look that seemed to be disbelief coupled with something he couldn't quite identify in response to his statement.

"Do you have someone precious to you? Someone you'd do anything to protect." he asked the boy.

"Not anymore." the boy said. "They're all gone. That Man killed them."

That threw him slightly. He'd been living with the impression that people in Konoha had lived easy lives where the worst one of their extremely coddled children had to face was an orphanage where they'd be fed for a long while. The boy in front of him though was like he had been before Zabuza-sama had found him and given him purpose, unhappy and completely alone.

"I lost my precious people once." he said quietly, remembering the day when his father had killed his mother and he had killed his father and a number of the people in the small village he used to live in in self defense. "Someone found me, and gave me a reason to live. Someday, you'll find someone else, and you'll be happy again when you do."

The boy gave him a dubious look, as if he didn't believe him and didn't want to believe him. It was true however, while he was still sad over the loss of his family and would always mourn the loss of his parents, he was happy he had Zabuza-sama. Zabuza needed him, and for as long as Zabuza-zama needed him, he would remain by his side serving him in every way he needed him to throughout good times and bad.

"Let me look at that arm of yours." he said holding out his hand for the boy's broken arm which had been put in a temporary cast, deciding to change the subject to something a bit less deeply personal.

While there was little to nothing he could do about the fact that all of the Konoha boy's precious people were gone, there was possibly something he could do about the boy's arm. Aside from knowing a great deal of herb lore, he had a few medical ninjutsu in his repertoire, and one of them was one that sped up the healing of broken bones considerably The boy who was giving him a highly suspicious glare didn't look like he would cooperate with his request though.

"I'm a fully trained medic." he said.

That last statement had been slightly fudged but, he knew how to deal with broken bones, and had been forced to do so a couple days ago when he was tending to Zabuza after his battle with the Copy Ninja. He knew that he was taking a serious risk in doing this but, he couldn't just leave an injured person without trying to help, even if they were on the opposite side of a conflict he was involved in.

The boy reluctantly complied, continuing to look at him suspiciously as if he expected him to stab him at any second. The boy clearly knew that he was in no shape to win any fight that would break out between them however, and had therefore refrained from attacking. He took the offered arm and gently examined it. It had been a clean break, and the bone had been properly set. Under such favorable conditions, there was very easily something he could do for the boy, and after using one of the few Medical Jutsu he knew, the bone was healed.

"You should get back." he said when he was finished. "Your sensei is undoubtedly worried about you."

With a grunted "Thanks", the dark haired boy left. He had no illusions that the boy wouldn't report him to his teacher. He would have to swiftly vacate the area and pick a different spot in which to gather the herbs he needed as quickly as he could so he could get back to Zabuza-sama as soon as possible. Aside from this and a nearby clearing, there was another clearing near the Uzushiogakure ruins that held the plants he was after as well. The clearing near the ruins seemed to be the safer choice especially should the boy's teacher go looking for him rather than wait for him and Zabuza to come to them as they would be later on.

After vacating the clearing which the Konoha Genin had just departed, he made his way to the ruins to gather the herbs he needed. After he was done, he paused at the ruins as he customarily did while on his way back to Zabuza-sama despite the fact that tarrying in such a manner was inadvisable. It was there that he saw the blond boy he met in Kiri and had seen again on the road escorting Zabuza-sama's target. He immediately recognized him because the boy was rather unforgettable with that wild blond hair, and those whisker marks that looked to have been tattooed onto his cheeks.

The boy was carrying a bouquet of wildflowers as he wandered through the ruins for some strange reason. As the boy moved through the ruins, he seemed to be searching for something rather than wandering aimlessly. He hoped that whatever the boy was searching for, it wasn't him because he wasn't in the mood to fight, and didn't want to be forced to kill the other ninja whom he was certain would recognize him for what he was, if he didn't recognize him for who he was. Some ninja had long memories, and some didn't. Eventually, the boy made his way into the overgrown graveyard that was choked with weeds, and after searching aruond for a while, he stopped in the section that contained a number of graves belonging to a clan called Uzumaki.

_"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" the boy who had offered to treat him to dinner said loudly with a bright smile on his face as he fiddled with a pair of chopsticks, impatiently waiting for the old man to finish preparing his ramen. "I'm going to be the Hokage someday!"_

As he watched from the shadows, the blond boy summoned a number of Kage Bunshin and, after setting the bouquet down on a random headstone, he joined them in cleaning up the cemetery. He was almost tempted to join the boy in his task but, he refrained from doing so. If the Uzumaki child who he couldn't forget was a Konoha ninja didn't recognize him as the girl he'd met in Kiri, he would surely recognize the fact that he was a ninja, and they would be forced to fight.

He didn't want to fight the blond boy since the boy was in obvious good health, was an unknown quantity skillwise considering how many Kage Bunshin he was capable of producing with minimal effort, and would be fully willing to attack him in order to protect his client as the outcome of the battle could potentially be in his favor. He had gotten lucky with the dark haired boy who had been suffering from a mild case of Chakra Exhaustion on top of his other injuries earlier, and he knew it. He didn't believe that his luck would hold twice in one day.

"I don't know which of you guys are my grandparents but, I'll bring flowers for all of you later." the Uzumaki boy said as he picked the bouquet of flowers back up when he and his clones had finished clearing all of the weeds out of the cemetery.

The boy then carried the flowers to the Killed In Action monument that was located near the center of the cemetery and laid them down before saying a brief prayer for the dead. Every shinobi village had such a monument, though they were never quite the same as, or in the same location as the memorials any other given village. Uzushiogakure's was a slab of black granite which had been polished at one time which had the symbol of the village and the names of the dead etched into it. Time had taken the shine off of it and begun to wear the names away but, they were still legible, and a large number of them had been Uzumaki.

As he watched the boy pay his respects to his fallen relatives, he felt slightly guilty as if he were spying on something private. It was then that he realized that he had been trespassing in the home of this boy's ancestors for years without once properly paying his respects to the dead. While the Uzumaki's attention was turned elsewhere, he quietly left the cemetery, hoping the boy wouldn't notice that someone had intruded on his solitude.

* * *

Naruto got up from where he had been kneeling in front of the Uzushio monument. He had had the feeling that he was being watched the entire time he'd been in the ruins of the former ninja village but, now it was gone. Whether that was because his ancestors had been appeased by his attempts to pay his respects or because someone had actually been watching him and only just left, he didn't know.

He had asked Tazuna-san for directions to the village earlier this morning, and the old man had rather reluctantly given them to him. It seemed that people avoided this place, believing it to be haunted. He too had a fear of ghosts, and had been slightly nervous when he had felt someone watching him from the shadows and had been unable to see him or her. If it had been a spirit, they apparently weren't offended by his presence.

To get here today, he had taken one of the sorts of breaks from training that would have had Tetsuo-sensei rip him a new one if he'd caught him doing it. He had left his Kage Bunshin to do all of the work while he went and did something else. Tetsuo-sensei had told him that leaving his Kage Bunshin behind to do all the work was an exceedingly stupid and lazy thing to do when he had caught him doing it, as he would get in the habit of foisting all of his tasks off on his clones and never really learn to do anything for himself because his clones would then become lazier as a result of him becoming lazier, starting a vicious cycle. But today, there had been some extenuating circumstances. He had wanted to pay his respects to the ancestors he had never known in case he didn't get a chance to do so later, and hadn't wanted to stop his training either.

After setting his clones to the leaf cutting task that they seemed to be close to accomplishing, he had set out to gather flowers as an offering as there had not been any to be bought in the small town near Tazuna's house. Once he had the flowers, he came here.

The ruins of Uzushiogakure were a desolate and lonely place, and some of the buildings looked as if they had been scavenged for building materials. Considering the current economic situation and the price of such materials, he understood why the locals had done so and didn't begrudge them what they took since it would be better for them to be of use to the living than to crumble to dust and be completely forgotten. At least, the people who had gone scavenging for building materials had had the decency to leave the graveyard and the monument alone.

The only issue he had with that was that it had been left entirely alone, and it looked as if nobody had come to tend to any of the graves in years if not decades.

Deciding that it was the least he could do, he summoned another batch of Kage Bunshin and weeded the place while the one he'd assigned as a scout went to look for the village's KIA memorial. He knew that every village had one, because he'd asked Tetsuo-sensei about it when he'd spotted Kiri's before the start of the rather ill fated Chunin Exams. Eventually, the cemetery was cleared, the monument was found, he'd been able to pay his respects, and the strange presence that had been making him nervous had vanished.

He didn't get very much time to ponder the reason behind the vanishing of the other presence. Considering the fact that one of the Kage Bunshin that had just dispelled had been informed by Kakashi that there had been some sort of incident with Sasuke earlier he decided that it would be better to shelve that mystery for later and should head back to Tazuna's.

* * *

Sasuke looked down at his arm once more. Someone who was his enemy, and therefore pretty much had an obligation to kill him had healed him instead. Why? Why do something like that for a complete stranger that you would be fighting if not then, then later? Had he healed him so he would have a better fight when the time came, or had he really done it out of the kindness of his heart as he had appeared to have done?

What the boy who had dressed like a girl had said about finding someone who would give him purpose and becoming happy again had bothered him as well. How would he ever be happy again with his entire family gone? Who would he find that would compare to the people he had lost? And, if he did find someone who compared, what would happen to that person if That Man were still alive and found out about them?

That Man had told him that in order to get the eyes he needed to be able to come close to equaling him, he would have to kill the one closest to him. That would naturally be any precious person he found or who found him. Would he really kill his precious person after he found him or her in order to avenge his clan?

Most disturbing to him was the fact that a part of himself had said yes.

It would seem that to protect this precious person whoever he or she may be, the best thing to do would be to never find them in order to protect them from himself.

**Edited 11-13-12**


	10. Wave: The Battle on the Bridge

Naruto swore. The two bastards from about a week ago had shown up at least a day earlier than expected and in a place that had been completely unexpected considering the usual Modus Operandi of the sort of missing-nin who were of a more mercenary bent. Rather than showing up in a place where they could cause a great deal of collateral damage which would have left the team scrabbling to protect innocent bystanders, they had turned up on a newly built section of bridge he hadn't gotten around to trapping yet because he'd run out of certain necessary materials and hadn't found ones he could use to jury rig traps that would capture a ninja. He was now seriously regretting focusing more on Tazuna's home and the nearby village where he believed an attack more likely due to the fact that the team would be distracted trying to avoid harm befalling innocent bystanders and therefore be more vulnerable.

He swore again when he realized that he'd flipping left Tazuna's home almost completely unprotected aside from a few traps he'd shown Tazuna's family to avoid in case he wasn't around to set off the others for some reason, as he'd deemed automatic traps that didn't require someone there to set them off to be a danger in this case especially with small children and untrained civilians around. Looking back now, he realized that he should have thought to leave at least one clone behind to activate the traps he had set. As Tetsuo-sensei used to say, "Bad things happen when people don't think".

After he finished swearing, he made a few Kage Bunshin while Sasuke was busy cutting down Zabuza's Mizu Bunshin at Kakashi's urging and dispatched them to Tazuna's residence in case there was someone else waiting in the wings to try something underhanded while he and his team were otherwise occupied. Zabuza had one accomplice with him, and logic dictated that where there was one, there was usually more and that any of the ones he couldn't see in front of him could be getting up to any amount of mischief. When he turned back to the fight after sending the clones off, the Zabuza guy himself had shown up along with his masked accomplice. The instant after they appeared, Sasuke volunteered to be the one to deal with the accomplice, which meant that he would be hanging back with the rest of the team and protecting the client until it looked like Sasuke needed assistance.

Despite the prodigious speed of Zabuza's accomplice who was so fast that he created his own whirlwind, Sasuke had him evenly matched. This wasn't all that surprising considering that two areas that Sasuke seemed to really shine in were Speed and Taijutsu so, he was the better choice to face Zabuza's accomplice in a straight up fight in this case. From the looks of things, Sasuke wouldn't be needing any help despite his opponent's surprising ability to make one-handed seals which was revealed when Sasuke had restrained the other hand. Based on Sasuke's current speed and the speed of those water, or rather ice senbon, Sasuke would be able to easily escape the Jutsu.

His job for now was to protect the client from Zabuza who had not yet made a single move in their direction since the destruction of his Mizu Bunshin for some strange reason.

* * *

Inari had been on the toilet when he had heard the loud swearing coming from outside. His first thought when he'd heard it had been that one of the neighbors had stopped by for a visit and had run afoul of one of Naruto's traps. He'd nearly done that himself on more than one occasion, and had almost had to be rescued once. That initial notion had been thrown out the window when he heard his mother scream and several dishes shatter however.

When he ran out of the toilet to see what was happening, he saw two men with swords taking his mother hostage. One of the men had tattoos on his face that reminded him of clown make-up and was wearing a hoodie, and the other one who wore an eye-patch with three straps was topless and covered in tattoos. When they noticed him, the one with the tattoos on his chest and arms moved to attack him.

"If you hurt him, I'll kill myself." his mother said, halting the man in his tracks. "You need a hostage, right? And, you won't have one if you harm him."

The man who was some sort of rogue swordsman turned away from him and back to his mother who glared at him defiantly, daring him to make a move. The rogue swordsman and his partner then bound his mother and started dragging her away as he stood by and watched helplessly. They had taken his mother and there had been nothing he could do about it. If Naruto were here, he would...he would...

Whatever he would do, it wouldn't be standing here watching as his mother was dragged away like he was doing. That Kakashi man had told him as much a couple days earlier.

_The boy named Naruto who'd lectured him on his first day here came in five minutes after the boy named Sasuke, completely wiped from his training. When he slumped over at the dinner table after the meal had ended, it was obvious that he was completely exhausted, even moreso than the Sasuke boy who looked pretty tore up himself._

_"Why?" he asked. "Why do you do this when it's not even your fight? It's not your country, and it's not your business! Why do you do this even knowing that you're just going to die?"_

_"Because, this was once my mother's home. And, even if it wasn't her home I'd do it anyway because it's the right thing to do." Naruto replied, sounding upset. "I could just as easily ask you why you sit around wailing that you can do nothing while your people suffer without even trying to do something about it!"_

_Unable to reply to the boy's accusation since he couldn't think of one that didn't sound like a pathetic excuse even to himself, he ran outside. Even though every reply he could think of sounded like an excuse, he knew that there was nothing that he could do about the way things were, he was just too small, and there was only one of him. As he was sitting on the dock that was attached to the house thinking how unfair the Naruto boy's question had been, Naruto's teacher came outside and joined him._

_"Naruto's like you in some ways." Kakashi-san said. "He never knew his father while growing up as well." _

_As he furiously scrubbed the tears from his eyes so he wouldn't look like a total sissy in front of this stranger, he wondered why the man was telling him this._

_"He never knew his mother either, since both of his parents died the day he was born. He had no friends as a small child but, he never let that get him down, and I've never once seen him cry about the fact that he was alone, even when there had been no-one there for him. I think he got tired of crying early on." Kakashi-san continued._

_He sat still wondering exactly where this story was going since so far, all he was hearing was that Naruto didn't cry despite the fact that he didn't have any parents. Naruto's life wasn't anything like his however. No evil man had taken over his home and killed the man he'd called father right in front of him._

_"What few friends he did manage to make became all the more precious to him because they had been few and far between." Kakashi-san continued._

_What did this have to do with him? So, Naruto had had a bad life but, not as bad as his._

_"One day, two of his friends were killed, and three others were badly injured right in front of him and he was then left to face two much larger and stronger opponents alone since there was nobody around to help." Kakashi-san said._

_"What happened next?" he asked realizing what the man had finally been getting at._

_"Instead of fleeing, Naruto did what he had to do to save his friends, even though there was a very good chance that he could die doing so. At that point, all he cared about was getting his remaining friends to safety, and he did everything it took to do so despite the fact that he was out-armed, out-numbered, and the enemy held the advantage." Kakashi-san replied._

Here he was in a similar situation to the one Naruto had been in back then, his mother was being taken away from him, and rather than fighting, he was sitting and crying about not being able to do anything without even once trying! His stepfather Kaiza had told him that if there was something precious to you, you protected it with your own two hands, even if it meant risking dying. Right now, the most precious thing in his life was being taken from him and he wasn't even trying to protect it!

Like hell!

There was a time when someone had to stop crying and running away, and stand up to fight for what was theirs no matter how strong the people taking it from them were, and that time was now!

"Let go of my mom!" he yelled at the two men who were leading his mother away after he'd run from the house and onto the wooden walkway that led to the path to the village to confront them.

"Run Inari!" his mother yelled as the two men whirled to face him.

As she yelled for him to flee, one of the men knocked her to the ground.

They had hurt his mother! He was going to kill them. He had no weapons, and the men who had his mother had swords but, that didn't matter. Like in that old story, he would hit them and, if they cut off his arms, he would kick them and, if they cut off his legs, he would bite them to death. He wasn't going to let them take his mother away from him. His mother was one of the most precious things in his life and he would do everything in his power to protect her.

The men moved to attack him, and he suddenly found himself elsewhere.

"Thanks for distracting them kid." said Naruto, who had shown up out of nowhere, taken him out of the path of danger, and was unbinding his mother whom he had rescued as well. "I wasn't sure if I would make it in time."

As he stared up at the other boy in wonder, he heard something behind him. When he turned to see what the commotion behind him was, he saw that it was two more Narutos who were beating the crap out of the men who had taken his mother.

"Seems you really do have a backbone kid." Naruto - or was it another one of his clones? - said as he patted him on the head.

Moments after the fight started, the two men who had taken his mother were down on the ground bruised, bleeding, and unconscious, brought low by someone who was only half their size. Seeing them in this state, he realized that they were not the insurmountable obstacles he had at first thought them to be. It was as Naruto had said earlier, they were only strong as long as you did nothing. In that case, he would make everyone do something, and they would take the strength away from the biggest of the monsters. He would rally everyone, and have them fight! This was their home, and Gato couldn't have it!

"Where are you going?" Naruto asked when he turned back to the house to grab any weapons he could find.

"I'm going to get everyone, and we'll get Gato together!" he replied.

"Well, in that case, I think I'll help. It's better than just hanging around here looking after you guys." Naruto replied. "Besides, I will be needing to tell the villagers what areas to avoid if boss and the others fail at the bridge, and it comes down to a street fight."

* * *

Naruto watched as Sasuke became trapped in an unknown jutsu that involved sheets of ice. Within the jutsu, the boy with the name that was very familiar for some reason was peppering Sasuke with senbon. He knew for a fact that the boy was deadly accurate with those things since he had paralyzed his master with them by unerringly throwing them at points that were very close to spots that would have been fatal, which made this activity more puzzling, unless...Unless, the boy wasn't actively trying to kill Sasuke.

Outside of the fight between Sasuke and Zabuza's accomplice, there was a virtual standstill as they stood facing Zabuza who had yet to make a move.

Why were their opponents not actively trying to kill them?

He knew that part of the reason that Zabuza hadn't tried to kill them was because Kakashi was keeping Zabuza in check in regards to Tazuna, and Zabuza was keeping Kakashi in check in regards to Sasuke. In that fight, neither would move until one or the other was certain of their advantage, which was the reason why Zabuza currently wasn't trying to turn them into sashimi with that sword. Sasuke's opponent however...

There was no reason for Zabuza's accomplice to spare Sasuke, no reason at all. He had him completely outclassed in that jutsu, and could have ended it all in the first strike. Instead of killing him right away however, he was giving Sasuke a very slow death with a thousand paper cuts and every opportunity to figure out a way to defeat his opponent.

As he watched the fight, trying to figure out what Zabuza's accomplice was up to, Sakura went over and tossed a kunai to Sasuke who had dropped his in the boy Haku's initial attack. The kunai didn't reach its intended recipient however because Haku went through the other side of one of the mirrors he'd rather foolishly assumed had been one-way and caught the thrown weapon before it could reach Sasuke. This gave him the first bit of good news he'd had throughout the entire battle. If Zabuza's apprentice was forced to fight on both sides of the mirrors, there would be an increased chance of the boy making a mistake that would allow them to defeat him.

With that in mind, he made his way over to the unusual jutsu that was a result of a Kekkei Genkai in which Sasuke was trapped, hoping that Sakura and Kakashi would be enough to protect Tazuna should Zabuza finally decide that attacking would be to his advantage. When he reached the dome of ice mirrors, he circled it looking for any weaknesses. There were none that he could see. After his first circuit, he decided to check the strength of the mirrors themselves. As he was powering up one of his Wind Jutsu, Zabuza threw several shuriken at him which Haku knocked off course with several senbon.

"Please let me deal with them Zabuza-sama." the boy named Haku said as the shuriken clattered to the ground.

"Fine Haku, go ahead." Zabuza replied before turning back to his standoff with Kakashi.

Sasuke took the opportunity to attack since Haku was distracted with him, but it didn't do him much good since the boy hadn't been nearly as distracted as he had seemed, and he intercepted Sasuke's attack and made yet another attack on Sasuke. In this attack, Sasuke was hit by about a thousand more senbon, and yet again the needles caused minimal damage, slicing here, scraping there, none of them stabbing into the boy who looked a bit like a pin cushion.

During Haku's attack on Sasuke, he attacked one of the mirrors with the Wind Jutsu he'd been in the middle of forming when Zabuza had thrown his shuriken and it did not break. It didn't even so much as crack. The Zabuza's accomplice responded to this attack by sending a volley of senbon in his direction while tossing yet another one at Sasuke. Undaunted, he attacked the mirror again at the same point that he had attacked it before hoping to further weaken it. Nothing. He attacked it again. Still nothing.

Inside the mirrors, Sasuke used one of his fireball jutsu. The mirror that it hit briefly started to melt by the time the fireball had burnt itself out, and rapidly reformed shortly after it had done so. He attacked the mirror that took the brunt of Sasuke's attack hoping that the melting and reformation of the mirror had weakened it somehow. Nothing there either. Realizing that he was getting nowhere, he decided to use the strongest of his small arsenal of Wind Jutsu on the mirrors despite the fact that he only had it half-mastered and Tetsuo-sensei would have given him hell for using a jutsu he hadn't fully mastered in battle. After making the seals for the Kazekiri no Jutsu, he launched the blade of wind at the mirror closest to him. It barely made a dent.

"Why do you try so hard to defend him?" the boy Haku asked. "Is he precious to you?"

"No." he replied honestly. "But my mother and the Yondaime entrusted me with the protection of Konoha and its citizens before they died, and they are precious to me. I will not let anyone from Konoha be harmed if there is anything I could do to prevent it. I will not let them down."

"I too have someone I need to protect." the boy said. "Being a shinobi is difficult for me, and I do not want to kill you, but I will kill my heart and be a shinobi in order to protect my precious person. He has entrusted his dreams to me, and I will not let him down either. I'm sorry."

With that, the boy started to attack Sasuke once more. There was nothing he could do about it from out here but try to break the jutsu since the boy was moving far too fast. Perhaps...He sent a number of Kage Bunshin into the jutsu to assist Sasuke. They were promptly dispelled, but Zabuza's accomplice had been distracted from Sasuke while they lasted. Hoping to keep the masked boy distracted, he sent in another wave while he attempted to break one of the mirrors with an explosive tag.

The mirror yet again refused to break. Hearing some sort of commotion behind him, he turned to look. While he'd been focused on freeing Sasuke, the standoff between Kakashi and Zabuza had finally heated up into a battle.

**Edited 11-26-12.**


	11. Wave: Battle on the Bridge II

"Why?" Sasuke asked as he watched the masked boy decimate wave after wave of That Boy's Kage Bunshin. There were several questions that were running through his mind, and they all boiled down to one, "Why?". Why hadn't the boy killed him earlier? Why wasn't this boy making a serious effort to kill him even now? He had him at his mercy, and yet he still held back. Why was he toying with him in this manner?

"I was like you once." the masked boy said as he moved from mirror to mirror. "I lost my precious people when my father killed my mother and tried to kill me."

At those words, a memory that was always close to the surface yet again came unbidden, a memory of the day he had lost all who were precious to him.

_He had come home late from training. The Uchiha district had been totally silent. Unnaturally so. He came across the first of the bodies on one of the side streets after he'd turned off the main road to say goodnight to his aunt whose light was still on on his way home. The main path through the district which led to his house had been completely devoid of corpses, as if it had been deliberately swept clear but, as he continued to explore, he soon discovered that there were more dead littering the alleys and byways of the Uchiha district, alot more. _

_After finding what had to be at least half the clan lying dead in what seemed to be oceans of blood, he ran fearfully through the silent streets that were littered with the bodies of his kin, dreading what he'd find at home. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached the house his family shared. It was dark and completely silent inside and out, as unnaturally silent as the district had been. Fearing what he would find, he ran through the empty halls frantically searching for his parents and his older brother. Inside his parent's bedroom was..._

_The bodies of his parents lay in a heap on the floor, one on top of the other. There was a pool of blood around them, and spatters of blood staining the walls. His parents were dead, and he could sense that he wasn't alone in the room. There was someone hiding in the shadows, possibly the same someone who had murdered his parents. _

_As he stood there uncertain whether to fight or flee, the person moved out of the shadows._

_It was Itachi._

The masked boy continued, his story, drawing him out of his flashback as he sent another volley of senbon in his direction, forcing him to dodge.

"My family had been a poor but happy and loving one that had lived on a small farm in Water Country." the boy said as the senbon sailed through the air.

"My mother however had had a secret that ended up destroying everything when it was discovered. Before I was born, there had been a long and bloody civil war in which those with Kekkei Genkai came to be feared and reviled for having been on the front lines slaughtering thousands upon thousands, shinobi and civilian alike. After the war, having a Kekkei Genkai was basically an automatic death sentence in Water Country. Despite being a civilian, my mother had been born with a Kekkei Genkai that she had struggled to keep hidden." the boy continued as he settled himself into another mirror and launched another volley of senbon.

"My mother's Kekkei Genkai had been passed down to me and, one day I discovered my powers and showed them to my mother, not knowing the danger they represented. Unbeknown to either of us, my father had witnessed this. That evening, he and several others from the nearby village came to our home and killed my mother. After they had killed her, my father moved to kill me. I blacked out after that but, when I came to, I learned that I killed my own father." the boy continued as he continued to flash from mirror to mirror taking out That Boy's Kage Bunshin at a rate that was becoming just the tiniest bit easier to see.

"It was then that I discovered that loneliness, the feeling of being unwanted, unneeded by anyone, of not having a purpose was the worst feeling in the world." the boy said after he'd taken out another batch of That Boy's Kage Bunshin as That Boy uselessly hammered away at the mirrors from the outside.

"I was starving on the streets alone for a long time until Zabuza-sama found me." the boy continued as he made an attack that prevented him from exiting the mirrors after he'd thought he'd seen a perfect opening.

"He had need of me and my powers which everyone else feared. He took me in, and I became his tool, his weapon, an extension of his will, and anything he asks of me, I will do, even if I have to destroy my own heart to do so." the boy finished as he made an attack on That Boy who had apparently done something that had rattled one of the mirrors, and That Boy went down with several Senbon sticking out of him.

Hearing that story, he had to admit that he and the masked boy were alike in some ways, and he could see how the boy could feel "sympathy" for him because he could understand his pain better than most. Both of them had had someone they had loved and trusted to protect them destroy their family. Both of them had been left completely alone in the world afterward. Of course that didn't make him stop resenting the other boy who continued to attack him or stop the other boy from attacking him though. It did however make him wonder how his life could have turned out if he hadn't had a need to avenge his clan to drive him.

If he had absolutely nothing left after That Man had killed his clan, would he have been the same? Would he have completely subsumed his will to that of the first person that had need of him who came along?

He was rather quickly pulled out of his musings because the boy's attacks became even more serious after he finished his story, apparently having reminded himself exactly why he was fighting. Instead of the usual tiny slices, the senbon were starting to stab into his body but, he could see! He could see every move the other boy made! Was this the sharingan? Had he finally activated it?

* * *

Kakashi knew he was growing tired but did his best to not let it show lest Zabuza spotted and exploited this weakness. He had lost a great deal of blood as he made the moves that would put his opponent into Check. Fortunately, he wasn't alone in his exhaustion. He could tell that his opponent was becoming exhausted as well, as the unnatural mist had begun to clear because his opponent was unable to continue pumping Chakra into it. If his opponent was as exhausted as he appeared, it meant that he would be slower than normal. Good. It was time to finish this.

Prepping the field for his finishing move, he pulled out the scroll he used to summon his pack and put blood on it before resealing it and pressing it into the surface of the bridge. Beneath him, his pack of nin-dogs made their way to Zabuza, broke through the surface of the bridge, and immobilized the man.

After exchanging the usual battle banter, which he could afford to do now that his opponent was immobilized, he powered up a Raikiri. Before he could move forward and impale the Swordsman of the Mist with it however, an ice mirror formed right next to him, and several senbon went flying. Due to his exhaustion which wasn't being helped by the Raikiri that was eating his Chakra like crazy, he wasn't as quick as usual, and he failed to dodge. After being impaled by the senbon, he fell to the ground unable to move. Fortunately, his dogs had dealt with Zabuza's arms so, unless Zabuza's accomplice who had so far shown Sasuke and Naruto mercy - Sasuke twice - had decided to finish him off, there was a good chance he would live.

Behind him he could hear a scream of "Kakashi!" and he could feel a familiar Chakra rising, a Chakra he had not felt in over twelve years. Naruto's seal was breaking.

Everything went black...

* * *

Momochi Zabuza growled in frustration at the situation he had found himself in. Hatake Kakashi the Copy Nin was lying on the ground in front of him, and he couldn't do anything to make sure he was finished off thanks to the dogs that were pinning him in place. The one good thing about this situation however was that Haku had yet again arrived in the nick of time to save his hide. That boy was more than worth all of the time and effort he had spent on him.

Kakashi was down, possibly permanently, but there was a more immediate threat to deal with. There was a new player on the battlefield, a powerful new player. The malevolent Chakra he had sensed shortly after the Copy Ninja had fallen to Haku's senbon continued to rise with each passing second. Who or whatever it was could be a serious danger to him.

Suddenly, there was a yell to his left, and the blond Inuzuka boy was racing up to him. As the boy approached, the dogs that had been holding him immobile scattered in all directions with their tails between their legs. He himself barely had time to register the fact that the boy had transformed when he came barreling into him on all fours. As his mind desperately scrabbled to find out what the hell was going on, the clawed and fanged boy with the slit-pupiled red eyes sent him flying and attacked him again. Haku tried to defend him, and got attacked himself for his troubles. After the boy incapacitated Haku, he focused on him once more, barreling into him, and trying to slice him open with his claws.

All he could think the entire time this was happening was "Holy shit!". This had most definitely not been how he'd planned for this attack to go.

* * *

For the second time in Uzumaki Naruto's life, he was seeing red. That boy Haku had taken out Kakashi, and it was all that Zabuza guy's fault! He'd heard that Haku boy's story, and knew that if that Zabuza guy hadn't made Haku fight, then he wouldn't have and Kakashi would have been fine. He was going to kill him! He was going to kill the both of them!

He attacked Zabuza first because he was the one responsible, the one who had been actively trying to kill Kakashi while Haku had been trying to spare him and Sasuke. As he was dealing with the man, Haku tried to attack him. The key word there being "tried". He swiftly dealt with Haku and turned back to Zabuza, intent on tearing him apart.

As he was about to land the final blow on that Zabuza guy, he smelled danger. Had the Haku boy gotten up? He whirled around in the direction the scent had originated. It wasn't the Haku boy. There was someone else here! No, several someones. He smelled sweat, unwashed bodies, and steel. Lots and lots of steel. There was an army somewhere nearby.

"How pathetic!" someone he couldn't yet see said. "I had hoped you would be able to take the other ninja with you before I took you out, but clearly the Demon of the Mist isn't all he's cracked up to be. Demon? Pah! More like a minor imp at best. You got brought down by a little kid."

He didn't like that voice. There was something wrong about it. Something that reminded him of every unpleasant person he'd run into in his entire life.

"I should have sent my mercenaries in in the first place, since you obviously couldn't get the job done." the person said as the mist that had been obscuring his vision faded.

The mist cleared completely revealing a short, stocky, grayish brown haired man in a suit and sunglasses with a cane standing at the head of a small army. He could've sworn he'd seen the man before somewhere but he couldn't place him. The men standing behind the man were armed to the teeth with a wide variety of weapons which ranged from swords to pikes.

"Kill the survivors, then move on to the village. The people there need to be taught a lesson." The man at the head of the group, whom he finally realized was the businessman Gato whose picture he'd seen in the paper, said.

Kill the survivors? But Saskuke and Sakura and Tazuna were the survivors, and he had sworn to protect them, and he never went back on his word. There was no way in hell he would let that happen! There was no way he would let the man who had ordered Zabuza to kill Kakashi take out the rest of his team!

The red haze that had been gradually fading overtook him once more, growing deeper until there was nothing left but red.

* * *

Sasuke couldn't quite process what he was seeing. It had started when the masked boy had left the mirrors entirely in the middle of a battle that had been entirely in his favor for some reason, and less than a minute later the mirrors all shattered, freeing him. Despite the fact that he had been freed, he could do nothing more than sit and watch what happened next, because the masked boy's senbon seriously restricted his mobility and prevented him from doing much else. The first thing he saw after the mirrors shattered was the masked boy lying on the ground. The second was Kakashi, obviously having been taken out by the swordsman Zabuza. The third was That Boy tearing the swordsman apart. Then, someone else arrived, someone who had been at the head of an armed mob.

It was what happened next after the mercenaries had shown up that he had been unable to process. After the man at the head of the mob had ordered the mob to kill them, That Boy changed as he raced towards the men on all fours. As the boy sped towards the group, a strange red energy started bubbling up from That Boy, and surrounded him, a strange red energy that caused an ominous feeling to wash over him even where he sat so far away from the coming action. The first thing That Boy did when he reached the group was grab the ankle of the fleeing leader, pull him towards him, and tear his throat out. As soon as the leader was dead, he then started on the mob.

One man impaled That Boy with a spear, and he pulled it out and continued attacking as if nothing had even happened. The wound that the spear had made closed before his very eyes. After the grievous wound that had been caused by the spear had healed, That Boy then started cutting a swathe through the group of mercenaries. The men soon began to break ranks and flee when they realized that their weapons were ineffective. That Boy would just keep pulling them out, and continue fighting while his wounds healed right before their very eyes. Heedless of the damage he caused as well as the damage that was caused to him, That boy chased the men as they fled over the side of the bridge.

What was That Boy? He couldn't possibly be human...

"Naruto!" someone behind him called, gaining his and everyone else's attention.

As he watched, That Boy turned away from the slaughter and raced over towards the source of the voice, which turned out to belong to Tazuna's small grandson who was at the head of a mob of locals armed with tools and farming equipment. As That Boy moved past him, he could see that he had somehow grown claws and fangs, and that the strange marks on his face had grown larger and more feral looking. There was something else as well, That Boy's eyes weren't blue, they were red.

"Naruto!" the Tazuna's grandson cried out when That Boy was almost on top of him.

That Boy reached up to attack, but stopped before he landed the final blow. The ominous red energy that That Boy emitted began to dissipate. The claws shrank back into nails, and the marks turned back into lines. The fangs presumably vanished as well.

"Hey Inari," That Boy said. "Sorry about that."

Just what in the hell was Uzumaki Naruto?

* * *

As Naruto spoke with Inari and the mob of villagers who had come with him, Haku had slowly made his way to his fallen master's side. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he reached him. He was weak, in pain, and quite possibly bleeding internally as well as externally, but that didn't matter. Only Zabuza-sama mattered.

Zabuza-sama was alive. Barely. He had lost far more blood than was healthy, and would continue to lose even more if he didn't do something. Using one of the few healing jutsu he knew, he pushed his Chakra into Zabuza-sama until he was about to pass out. There was a good chance that he wouldn't wake up because he had used up so much of his Chakra. There was also a chance that Zabuza-sama would die despite his ministrations as well. He would cross that bridge later when he came to it though.

His last thought as his consciousness faded was _If Zabuza-sama dies, then I don't want to wake up._

**Edited 11-26-12**


	12. Wave: Aftermath

Kakashi groaned when yet another person came to his room in Tazuna's home asking for advice. It was the morning after a major battle, he was suffering from several injuries as well as Chakra Exhaustion up the wazoo, and he just wanted to sleep. Unfortunately, he had been unable to get any of that sleep he so desperately needed because the nice townsfolk of the village that surrounded Wave's main port kept coming in and bothering him. Things would have been much easier if Momochi Zabuza and that boy Haku had died on the bridge.

He was still thanking his lucky stars that Haku wasn't quite the merciless killer that Zabuza had portrayed him to be. Instead of being worm food like he'd half expected to end up being when he'd fallen unconscious, he was going to be laid up for about a week before going home from yet another crappy mission. Of course, prospect of the week's inactivity really sucked because he hated being inactive.

When Naruto had learned that he was still alive, and had merely been paralyzed by Haku's senbon, he had ordered the mob of townspeople who had shown up a little too late to drive Gato and his forces out to spare the boy and the swordsman who had been laying unconscious in the middle of a damaged section of bridge. Rather than being torn apart by an angry mob as they would have otherwise been, the two were taken prisoner and dragged off to the town doctor to be fixed up before they were dealt with. The two of them received slightly more sympathy from the townspeople than they would have had when Naruto had revealed that Gato had planned on betraying them and killing them once they had completed the mission for which they'd been hired. Not much more than a little though.

Now that they had them, the townspeople wanted to know what to do with the two missing-nin, and had turned to him for advice since he was the highest ranked ninja in the region. Dealing with Haku and Zabuza was a slightly sticky and problematic situation. The townspeople would not be able to keep the two locked up indefinitely as, when they finally recovered from their injuries, they would be able to easily make their escape. They weren't going to be executed either, as Naruto - who was currently the hero of the hour despite his little er...outburst - had pled for clemency and the townsfolk had kindly granted it. They couldn't just let the two go on their way however, and reporting them to the Kirigakure Hunter nin would just result in their executions, so they couldn't really do that either.

He knew that bringing the two of them to Konoha would be a headache and a half for an entirely different set of reasons from the ones that were plaguing the people of Wave, even if they didn't escape or even try to escape while being transported. Momochi Zabuza was infamous for his attempted assassination of the Yondaime Mizukage Yagura, and having him in Konoha would spark a diplomatic incident with Kiri which Konoha really didn't need at all. Relations were still frosty after that incident with Naruto during last year's Winter Chunin Exam, and the reason there hadn't been any sanctions was the fact that Kiri couldn't prove that A) Naruto was a Jinchuriki, and B) that Naruto had been sent to Kiri with malicious intentions on Konoha's part.

So, thanks to the fact that Haku and Zabuza had survived, they were stuck in a Catch 22. They couldn't keep Zabuza and his accomplice, and they couldn't get rid of them either. Well, technically they could get rid of them, but Naruto would kick up one heck of a fuss which would result in another set of problems. Relations between him and Naruto were bad enough, and he didn't need to bring something like that between the two of them on top of everything else.

He really wasn't in the mood for this. He was going to do what he should have done from the beginning and say "Screw it" before kicking this upstairs for the Hokage deal with as soon as he could summon a messenger. Let the Hokage take the fallout. He deserved it, for...for...Whatever, the Hokage deserved it.

* * *

Inari watched in mixed revulsion and satisfaction as the townspeople burned Gato's body. The monster that had haunted his nightmares was dead and gone, brought down by a monster that was also a hero. A good person who'd turned out to be more than he'd appeared had done something, and the evil one that had been given strength through the inaction of others who'd turned out to be weaker than everyone had thought him to be had been destroyed.

Thanks to Naruto, both his mother and his grandfather were still alive.

Rather than say that the enemy was too strong, Naruto had faced down an entire army and had fought to save everyone, even though he would almost certainly have been killed. And, like in the stories, the hero had been given great strength defeated the monster, sent the villain's forces fleeing, and saved everyone. Well, almost everyone. Some of the construction workers hadn't survived the battle that had raged around them after Gato's ninja had attacked.

The thing that mattered most now though was that Wave was free, thanks to Naruto.

* * *

Even though he should be back at Tazuna's resting, Naruto sat at Haku's bedside and studied the other boy's face as he slept. Doctor Yoshida had taken the boy's mask off when he had been brought in for treatment, and he'd immediately noticed that the boy had very feminine features. He'd also had the niggling feeling that he'd seen him before somewhere as he looked at the boy's exceedingly feminine face which would likely plague him into adulthood. Because that feeling had bothered him like an itch he couldn't scratch, he racked his brain trying to figure out where it could have been that he'd seen the boy before. Finally, it came to him. The boy looked just like a very nice girl he'd once met...

_He was seated on a worn stool in front of the counter of a slightly-run down ramen stand in a foreign village. The nice girl who had led him here was seated next to him. They had introduced themselves to each-other as they waited for the old man to finish making their ramen. Her name was Haku, which was rather strange, since that was a boy's name._

_"Tell me," the girl asked slightly nervously. "Do you have someone precious to you? Someone that you would do anything to protect?"_

She, he rather, had been so nice to him back then, had been one of the very few good things that had happened to him in Kiri. He'd almost forgotten her, him, in all the general unpleasantness that had occurred later, and now, he'd almost killed him. He had completely lost control of himself, and had almost killed someone who had shown him nothing but kindness and mercy.

He had almost killed a friend of his as well yesterday. Inari would have died if he hadn't regained control of himself at the last second. Morishita-san had warned him that something like this would happen if he let his rage control him after the first time this had happened, when he was in Kiri. She had told him to reign in his temper and find a safe outlet for it. He apparently hadn't. He had lost control again, and had let even more of the Fox out, the fox that his mother and the Yondaime had trusted him to keep sealed away. He had failed them.

As he wallowed in his guilt as he waited for Haku to wake, the Zabuza guy groaned from the other bed in Dr. Yoshida's small clinic. He had just returned to consciousness and was undoubtedly in a massive amount of pain. It had been touch and go with him last night, and his survival had not been certain. He had pulled through however and, if his wounds didn't get infected or something, he should survive. They had nearly lost Haku due to his injuries and the Chakra Exhaustion last night as well, and he was still in danger until he woke up.

The two of them wouldn't have been in nearly as bad a condition as they were currently in if he hadn't completely lost it. It was one thing to kill your enemies in battle, it was something else entirely when you lose it, almost kill your enemies, and become a danger to everyone around you including your allies like he had done.

If he didn't find a way to stay in control of himself during these kinds of situations, one of the dead was going to end up being a friend or a teammate someday.

* * *

Sakura stood outside the town's small, run-down medical building uncertain about whether she should go inside or not. Naruto was inside, and she wasn't certain if she was ready to face him yet. What she had seen yesterday had really shaken her. Naruto had snapped. Naruto had more than snapped, Naruto had turned into a monster.

What had happened to the nice, cheerful but annoying boy that she had remembered from the Academy? Had he always been like this? Is this why everyone avoided him and told their children not to play with him?

She had heard of Kekkei Genkai before, but none of the ones in Konoha that she'd heard about matched what she had seen. His mother had been a foreigner though. His mother had come from here in fact. The doctor who ran the clinic was old, probably old enough to remember Naruto's family. Maybe she would know whether or not Naruto had a Whirlpool Kekkei Genkai.

With her mind finally made up, she finally entered the building. The doctor was sitting in a chair resting, having spent the night tending to her two patients who had been in critical condition when they arrived. The two patients were occupying beds at either end of the room and Naruto was sitting next to the boy's bed, watching the boy with a serious expression on his face.

"Yoshida-san?" she said, trying to get the doctor's attention. "I was wondering if I could ask you a question."

She was slightly uncertain about asking with Naruto present, but it was probably better than going behind his back. If Naruto objected to the question, he could ask the doctor not to answer it but, she really wanted to know the answer however.

"What is it?" Doctor Yoshida asked tiredly, sitting up straighter in the chair she had been slumped in.

"Well, I was wondering if you knew if the Uzumaki had a Kekkei Genkai. What Naruto did yesterday didn't match any of the Konoha Kekkei Genkai I've heard about." she replied, almost timidly.

"The Uzumaki were famous for their red hair, their sealing skills, and living to a very ripe old age, but I don't think that those were Kekkei Genkai. Why?" Doctor Yoshida replied after a minute of thought.

"Well yesterday, Naruto grew claws and fangs, and there was this strange red Chakra surrounding him, and I thought it might be a Kekkei Genkai." she answered.

"Jinchuriki." Momochi Zabuza moaned from his bed.

Doctor Yoshida gasped at this, looking shocked and sickened.

"What's Jinchuriki?" she asked.

"About the most horrible thing anyone could do to a child." Doctor Yoshida replied. "To make a Jinchuriki, you seal one of the biju into a living child, usually an infant, since the beast's Chakra would normally kill an adult. The Jinchuriki are used as weapons by their village."

"I'm not a weapon." Naruto growled from where he sat by Haku, apparently having listened to the entire conversation despite the rapt attention he seemed to be paying the unconscious boy. "My mom and the Yondaime sealed the Fox inside me to keep Konoha safe. They wanted me to protect everyone from it."

A pain filled "Holy shit!" came from Zabuza's direction.

* * *

Sasuke froze with his back against the wall. He had been standing by the open window of the clinic providing extra security in case one of the injured ninja decided to take one of the more popular hospital exits in an attempt to escape. What he'd just heard...

That Boy had the Kyuubi sealed inside him. The Kyuubi that had vanished after Uchiha Madara had used it in his battle against the Shodai Hokage at the Valley of the End, and had reappeared twelve years ago only to be disposed of by the Yondaime who had given his life to do so, disposed of on the day That Boy had been born.

He remembered asking his father how the Kyuubi had died after he'd heard the rather sketchy story that had been told to his entire year during a special assembly that had taken place on the Yondaime's birthday during his first year at the Academy. He'd asked his father because he'd thought he would know how the Kyuubi had been killed because the Academy Instructor who'd told the story had refused to tell them how the Yondaime had killed the Kyuubi. In fact, the man yelled at That Boy for asking when he had told the combined classes the tale of the Yondaime's sacrifice for the village. When he'd asked, is father had looked like he'd been about to say something about it, but he suddenly changed his mind and told him not to ask ever again, that the Yondaime had defeated the Kyuubi, and that was all he needed to know about the subject.

Had his father known about Naruto? Had that Academy Instructor known? And, if they had known, who else knew, and why hadn't they shared their knowledge?

* * *

Zabuza had heard the rumors of the Kyuubi Jinchuriki that had been cropping up lately, but hadn't put much stock in them, as there had not even been a whisper about a Kyuubi Jinchuriki in the generations since the Jinchuriki first started being made. The rumors had started after some sort of incident that took place during the Chunin Exams over a year ago. Supposedly, according to the rumors he'd heard, the Kyuubi Jinchuriki was a small blond boy. A blond boy, like the one that had nearly taken him out on the bridge.

The existence of the Jinchuriki had not been confirmed, until now that is. He had nearly been killed by, and was currently lying helpless in the same room as the Kyuubi Jinchuriki who was sitting by the bedside of Haku who was also helpless.

He should have followed that damn fortuneteller's advice and not accepted any business contracts on that day. But no, he had to go and accept Gato's offer, and look where it had gotten him. He'd been betrayed by his employer before he could betray the man, was down two followers, was badly injured, and was the prisoner of a bunch of Konoha shinobi, one of which was Sharingan Kakashi, and another of which was the Kyuubi Jinchuriki who he hadn't believed in. To make matters worse, he had done all that work and nearly gotten himself killed twice in order to get funds for another coup attempt, and he hadn't seen a single ryo for his effort.

Today really sucked. In fact, the entire week had blew chunks.

**Edited 11-26-12**


	13. Wave: Aftermath II

Kakashi felt like slamming his head against the nearest wall, and probably would have if he could get up to do so. Thanks to someone's boneheaded stupidity, he now had to explain the Sandaime's law to one of his students, one of his students who happened to be one of the biggest gossips in Konoha. As if things hadn't been going badly enough already, Naruto had let the cat out of the bag with the help of Momochi Zabuza and a doctor who knew way too much about Jinchuriki for her own good.

He could probably try to have Zabuza executed on the grounds of knowing classified information, but that would be flimsy at best and Naruto probably knew it, because as far as Kiri and therefore Zabuza were concerned, that particular cat had been out of the bag and running around the house for over a year. The fact that Zabuza had said "Jinchuriki" in speculation according to witness accounts rather than saying "Naruto is the Kyuubi Jinchuriki." was a pesky technicality that might protect him from the Sandaime's law, which probably couldn't be enforced in his case anyway because he wasn't a citizen of Konoha but, probably could considering the fact that he was currently a prisoner of Konoha's forces and therefore under their jurisdiction until he was either executed or repatriated.

He could still kill the Demon of the Mist over it but, Naruto would raise an almighty stink and relations between the two of them were cool enough already because he was a villain in Naruto's eyes for taking him from a teacher he'd grown attached to. Kill two more people that Naruto was attached to, and he'd most likely end up being dead to the boy. He couldn't teach his sensei's son if the boy completely disavowed his existence. He would have to consult with the Hokage on that and see what he thought when he summoned his messenger. As far as he was concerned, the Hokage could be the villain in this situation and sort this whole Zabuza mess out. And, the sooner he did it, the better.

He would be able summon a messenger to send a report back to Konoha tomorrow, or the next day at the latest. He planned on summoning Uhei as he was his fastest runner.

His day had been completely screwed an hour earlier when he'd been trying to sleep and Sakura had come in asking about Jinchuriki and Naruto in particular. He'd been forced to explain that yes, a twenty story tall fox made entirely of Chakra had been sealed into Naruto on the day he had been born, and that no, Naruto wasn't usually a danger to himself or others, had not been since day one, and no, Naruto hadn't known about the Kyuubi himself until recently. Before he could get a word in edgewise about the Sandaime's law regarding the subject, she'd left the room to go and do whatever.

Sasuke had come in after he'd dozed off again and further ruined his day by demanding information about the Uzumaki. He found it rather odd that the boy didn't know anything more about Uchiha Madara and his ability to control the Kyuubi than what any school child knew, which was that the man had used the creature in a battle with the Shodai Hokage at the Valley of the End where he'd died. His clan and the law had apparently kept the boy sheltered against the suspicions against the Uchiha in regards to the Kyuubi's attack. Fortunately, Sasuke had stuck around for a brief overview of the law and the reasons surrounding it as that was part of the information he wanted to know.

If it had been merely for Naruto's sake, the law wouldn't have required such a draconian punishment. The identities of the Kyuubi Jinchuriki had been closely guarded secrets in Konoha for generations. The first Jinchuriki had been rumored to have been the Shodai Hokage's wife Senju (nee Uzumaki) Mito, but that had never been confirmed or denied. There had been rumors amongst the older generations that Hashirama and Mito's two children had had whisker marks on their cheeks like Naruto's, but that couldn't be confirmed, though they had always been wearing heavy make-up in the few surviving photographs there were of them. Someone had obviously taken Mito's place as Jinchuriki - if she had been one in the first place - since she died long before the Kyuubi attack, but it was not known - at least to the majority of the village at large - exactly who. There had been some whispers about Kushina-san that everyone in the know had refused to confirm or deny though.

He knew he should have listened to his horoscope when it said that any journeys undertaken on that day would be filled with misfortune. He had been attacked, stabbed, practically sliced open, nearly drowned, paralyzed, suffered from Chakra Exhaustion twice, and now was forced to explain to the kiddies exactly why they couldn't tell their friends about Naruto's status as a Jinchuriki, and also be forced to explain to the Hokage that they knew, and exactly why they knew. And, here he'd thought he'd be taking a nice little seaside vacation.

This mission completely blew.

* * *

Sakura wasn't sure how she should feel about Naruto, but she could understand how he came to be the way he was. Someone had taken an infant on the day it was born and, in a completely monstrous act had sealed a demon inside of it with the consent of at least one of its parents. Just about everyone in the village who had been alive and able to understand what was going on at the time knew about this, and hated Naruto because of it. Naruto had grown up completely alone without either of his parents who had also died in the Kyuubi's attack like so many other people had done that day. He'd been unloved, unwanted, and uncared for, and before he could make any friends, the adults had poisoned their children against him. It was the perfect conditions to make a monster, and yet, Naruto wasn't one, not exactly.

If Naruto had truly been a monster, he would have killed her or really broken her arm instead of merely threatening to do so when she had attacked him that day at the Academy. If Naruto had truly been a monster, he would have killed everyone on that bridge when he had lost control instead of just Gato's men. If Naruto had truly been a monster, he would not have cared about this place or its people in the first place, and therefore wouldn't have even bothered with the battle. If Naruto had truly been a monster, he would not have cared if his teammates lived or died and wouldn't have taken their survival into consideration. If Naruto had truly been a monster, he would not have sworn to protect Konoha either. While Naruto just barely kept a monster contained, Naruto himself was not a monster.

What would her life have been like if the Yondaime had asked her parents for permission instead of Naruto's? Would her parents have kept her despite the fact that the entire village would have hated her and wanted her gone? Would they have still loved her, or would they have feared her because of what she had kept contained? Would she have had any friends? Would she have managed to survive without friends the way Naruto had? Would she have viewed the protection of Konoha and its citizens as her responsibility the way Naruto had, despite the fact that most of them hated him or would she have completely despised Konoha instead?

Would she have been nearly as strong as Naruto was now? Would she have had his courage? Would she have had his empathy, and his sense of duty, or would she have become the monster many people seem to think Naruto is?

* * *

Sasuke sat in a tree to think, as he often did when he had a thorny problem that couldn't be ignored which he had to sort out. The conversation he'd had with Kakashi had both been rather informative, and had brought up a slew of questions. While he'd been pumping Kakashi for information about That Boy, Kakashi had been trying to weasel information out of him that he honestly didn't know and therefore couldn't give. Kakashi's offhand comment about rumors about his father and the Kyuubi confused and upset him. His father would never have done something like that. Konoha was his home, and several Uchiha had died that day defending Konoha from the Fox. His father would never have senselessly thrown away the lives of any of the members of his clan.

He could understand how a civilian might think that though. Madara, who had been a Uchiha, had somehow controlled the Kyuubi and forced it to fight Senju Hashirama. People could then logically come to the assumption that Madara had passed the secret of how to do this on to the clan. If Madara had however, he hadn't found it, and it definitely wasn't in the Uchiha's secret hiding place, as he'd already thoroughly searched it, looking for what That Man had told him about. All he'd found down there was the secret of attaining the Mangekyo sharingan and a bunch of maps with patrol routes on them that made absolutely no sense since they completely bypassed the worst parts of the village and heavily concentrated officers around the Hokage Tower, Administration Complex, and the shelter behind the Hokage Monument.

Another question that came to mind was why That Boy? What had been so special about him that had made the Yondaime pick him out of all of the infants in Konoha? Had it been because his parents had volunteered him before the Yondaime could ask anyone else, or had it been for some other reason?

He could have used power like that. He could have used it to completely destroy That Man. He was a Uchiha and therefore should have been able to control the Kyuubi's powers the way Madara did somehow. He would have used the Kyuubi to turn That Man into paste.

But then again, the Shodai Hokage had taken control of the Kyuubi away from Madara, and killed him before he could get it back. There was a distinct possibility that That Boy had been selected because he'd been born with whatever it was that had allowed the Shodai Hokage to seize control of the Kyuubi from Madara. If that were the case, That Man could have found and used That Boy if he'd had the Kyuubi sealed inside him instead of That Boy, that infuriating boy who was so far ahead of him it wasn't even funny, That Boy who would more than likely achieve his goal before he achieved his ambition.

That Boy had always been going on about being Hokage, even when he was in the Academy. Did he know something everyone else didn't? Had he been groomed for the position from the start?

According to history, and what he'd heard about the Uzumaki Clan from Kakashi when the man had explained that Naruto hadn't really adopted him since the knowing consent of both parties was required or kids would be passed back and forth through several clans each time another kid unthinkingly loaned out their clothes as Naruto had done, the Uzumaki had been closely related to and intermarried with the Senju. Two of the Hokage had been Senju, the Third had studied under both of the first two Hokage, and the Fourth had studied under one of the Third's students. As that boy was related to the Senju, and on a team under the student of the Yondaime, it would be logical to assume that he would be selected as the Sandaime's successor.

Great. He'd been doing just about everything he could to alienate and piss off the next Hokage. Things were going to go real well for him when he restored his clan. Not.

He now knew why Naruto had been placed on the team since it was glaringly obvious when you bothered to stop and think about it. He didn't bother to question why he was on the team as the answer to that question could be summed up in one word: Sharingan. Considering the fact that he was the last of the Uchiha besides That Man, and that That Boy was the future Hokage, what the hell was Sakura doing on the team?

* * *

Haku groaned as he awoke, and winced as the light attacked his eyes as usual since, for some strange reason, his eyes became extremely light sensitive when he suffered from Chakra Exhaustion. He could barely see, but he could tell that he was in a bed somewhere within the town that was located near the bridge, and that someone other than Zabuza-sama had brought him here, since Zabuza-sama was aware of his light sensitivity and would never have stuck him next to an open window and left the blinds up.

Had he completely failed Zabuza-sama? Had Zabuza-sama died? What would he do now that he'd failed?

"Pull the shades, the light's hurting the kid's eyes." said a voice that Haku had feared that he'd never hear again, cutting through his rising panic.

As he nearly fainted in relief that he hadn't completely failed his master, someone hastily moved to close the blinds. He caught a flash of yellow, dark orange, and brown. Soon, the shades were drawn, and he was better able to focus on who it was. It was Naruto.

While he was afraid of Naruto because of what the boy could do, he understood. He had seen the look of rage, pain, and grief that had been on the boy's face when he had transformed and attacked Zabuza-sama when he believed that his Sensei had been killed. If it had been Zabuza-sama who had been killed, or appeared to have been killed instead, he would have done the same thing. He couldn't call Naruto a monster because, what would that make him since he too had a Kekkei Genkai? And, Naruto wasn't a monster, he hadn't killed indiscriminately, he had only killed those who had threatened him and his, albeit in a rather vicious manner.

"I'm sorry Haku." Naruto said sadly when he realized that he was looking at him. "Please forgive me."

What reason did Naruto have to apologize to him? He'd done nothing but hurt the boy. He'd deceived him the day he'd met him, and used him as a distraction in order to escape. He'd wandered around the home of the boy's ancestors as if it were his own private playground without once paying his respects to them. He'd attacked the boy, attacked his teammates, and attacked his sensei, making him believe that he'd killed the man. What reason did Naruto have for begging his forgiveness? It should be the other way around, he should be the one begging Naruto for forgiveness.

"I forgive you." he finally said after yanking himself out of his litany of the cruelties he had heaped upon the younger boy, seeing that his lack of an answer had caused the boy even more pain.

**Edited 11-26-12**


	14. Wave: Clash of the ANBU

The Sandaime Hokage stared at the report that one of Kakashi's ninken had brought in which sat innocuously at the edge of his desk as if it were a poisonous snake almost afraid to open it and discover what sort of nightmare it contained. Reports were usually given at the end of a mission after everything was said and done and everyone had all gone home either happy or dead depending on the type of mission assigned. When they arrived in the middle of a mission, it meant that something had gone very seriously wrong and that someone needed to head out there posthaste to clean up the mess. He just knew that he really didn't want to find out what sort of mess Kakashi and his team could create in a week and a half though.

What could go so wrong on a C ranked mission that was basically little more than a glorified walk with a seaside vacation tacked onto the end of it that would result in a mid-mission report? The customer in question had been particularly trying, but not so much so that he'd be turned away for fear of his escort killing him before he reached his destination...Oh god, Sasuke hadn't snapped and killed the client had he? Kakashi had been telling him that the boy had some anger issues, but he'd waved them off as not being too serious, as the boy had not been behaving overly aggressively.

Knowing that he'd have to get it over with eventually and dreading what he would find, he carefully broke the seal on the scroll. After unfurling the scroll, he skimmed the document, stopped, and began to read it more thoroughly, hoping to all that was holy that he had misread what had been written while he'd been skimming the report. He hadn't. Naruto's curse had struck big-time and the C rank had turned into an A rank, and then, when everyone had thought it was over, it had really hit the fan. There had been another "incident" with Naruto on the bridge, and there had been a large number of witnesses this time. Naruto's teammates were now aware of his status as the Kyuubi Jinchuriki. And, to make matters worse, Kakashi had a pair of high risk prisoners he didn't know what to do with, since Naruto had grown rather attached to one of them, making executing them rather problematic for the man whom Naruto had yet to warm up to.

Damn. He knew that he wouldn't have wanted to know. Things would have been a whole lot easier if it had just been one of the Genin snapping and killing the client. He could have found a way to sweep that under the rug at least. It had happened often enough over the years.

As for the prisoners that Kakashi had taken, he could deal with those. He would send a team of ANBU to retrieve Zabuza and his young accomplice. That would give him time to figure out what he was going to do with them, and how to explain to Naruto exactly why he had to do what he had done afterward.

* * *

Danzo choked slightly on his morning tea as he read the report he'd picked up after a nice relaxing three day weekend at a bed and breakfast in a nearby town. Things had been going slowly lately, so he had rather foolishly thought that he could take the time off to relax and not bother focusing on work as he had done for the last several decades. He'd thought he'd set everything up so that it would go smoothly without him there to supervise every little detail for a few days, but he was wrong. This was what he got for trying to take a vacation once in the nearly sixty years that he'd been a shinobi.

Gato was dead, and without him there to hire thugs to threaten a few families and break a few bones when bribes didn't work, a number of stalled investigations into his businesses were now rapidly progressing. Because of this, he could stand to lose millions in funding for Root. Not only had he heavily invested in Gato's corporations and the man's less than legal activities, but Gato had hired a number of his operatives for some of his more clandestine operations. Without Gato to head Gato Corp., the company was going to fall apart, especially after the results of the various investigations became public knowledge. Even if he managed to cash out all of his Gato Corp. stock, the price had already fallen to a point where it would be at a loss on his initial investment following the news of Gato's demise.

Adding to this little shitfest was the fact that a thorn in his side that he thought Gato would deal with - knowing the man's tendencies - was still alive. Momochi Zabuza had the potential to become the Mizukage should he finally manage to get his coup off the ground. Unlike most potential Mizukage candidates, the man was ruthless and capable, and while he was willing to sell himself to the highest bidder to get the funds he needed, he was a staunch patriot in his own way. What's worse, the man had his own sense of honor that would preclude him dealing with him, and the loyalty of his followers even though he had flat out told them that they were nothing more to him than tools to help him reach his ambition. All in all, Momochi Zabuza not a good candidate for the position in his opinion. Kirigakure needed a relatively weak Mizukage so they would not be a threat to Konoha, and that was most definitely not Zabuza.

Another person that was rapidly becoming a thorn in his side was the Jinchuriki. It was because of the boy that the most major problem that had cropped up during his short vacation that he wished he was back on if only because he didn't want to deal with this mess. He had known that boy would be trouble the instant he saw the drooling "bundle of joy" who looked so much like his mother who had been a headache and a half in his opinion. When he had seen him again with The Boy who had taken him under his wing, he'd upwardly revised the amount of trouble the jinchuriki would be. The reality however was turning out to be much worse.

Rubbing his temples in order to ward off an impending headache, he called for several teams of Root operatives whom he ordered to clear out all evidence of their dealings from Gato's holdings. He then called for a team which he then ordered to take out Zabuza before the man could escape and cause even more problems that he and Konoha didn't need. That team would of course be at a greater risk than the other one because they were going to be wearing the emblem of a foreign nation so that the ANBU team that the Hokage had sent out wouldn't be alerted to Root's continued existence.

* * *

Over in Water country, the government in Kirigakure had been in complete disarray since the Yondaime Mizukage Yagura had bit the big one a few months back, and the Sanbi escaped its seal, cutting a swathe of destruction through the village on its way down to the sea. Considering the situation, it was completely understandable that the report regarding Zabuza's possible presence in Wave had gotten kicked around for a few weeks before it finally reached the Hunter-nin.

After bouncing around several departments, the report finally reached the desk of a rather capable captain who had taken charge of the Hunter nin until an acceptable candidate for the position of Godaime Mizukage could be found. After finishing the paperwork he had in front of him, he opened and read the report, swore at its age, and assigned a reasonably skilled team to check out Wave and see if Zabuza's trail could be picked up there. Momochi Zabuza had been a thorn in his backside for far too long...

* * *

It is extremely fortunate for Zabuza that the squad leader of the ANBU that the Hokage had sent - who was codenamed Tenzo - had been a friend of Kakashi's when the other man had been in ANBU. Tenzo had hurried his team up a bit because he had wanted to make certain that Kakashi was really alright, and that extra bit of speed had meant that the Hokage's ANBU had managed to reach Zabuza first rather than the Kiri Hunter-nin or Root. Tenzo, who had been chosen for this mission because his Mokuton abilities would make the prisoner transfer process easier, had hurried his team because he was concerned for his old friend since "I'm fine" could cover a wide range of conditions with Hatake Kakashi, ranging from almost dead from blood loss and Chakra Exhaustion, to actually being fine, and his teammates had been willing to go along with this because they were somewhat fond of the former ANBU captain as well. Without any griping from any of the team who had all wanted to make sure that their sempai was well, they had made excellent time to the small port town in Wave.

After checking in with Kakashi and catching up with him a bit, Tenzo had learned that the prisoners in question were at the town's medical clinic where they were being seen to by the town's only doctor, and being guarded by Uzumaki Naruto who had grown attached to Zabuza's young accomplice Haku whom he'd apparently met during the Chunin Exams in Kiri. Leaving Kakashi's side, he and his team swiftly made their way to the clinic to relieve the conflicted young Genin who might end up making a mistake that would follow him for the rest of his career of his burdensome duty. As he and his team were securing the two Mist ninja for transport, two teams of Hunter nin from Kiri showed up. After trading a few hand signs, both teams started fighting each-other.

Tenzo wasn't sure which side to join in this matter. While only one of the groups were a legitimate team of Hunter nin from Kiri, the other group that was fighting was using language from Konoha and therefore could be on a clandestine mission he'd not been informed of. The fact that he hadn't been informed of a mission that could potentially affect his own by the Hokage no matter how clandestine positively smacked of it being illicit. At this point, either group would be needing the aid of himself and his teammates. Should he aid the group from Konoha whom he would have been told about if they had been on a legitimate mission, or should he aid the group from Kiri since he'd more than likely have to arrest the group from Konoha since it wasn't supposed to be here?

Perhaps the best solution in this case would be to deal with all of them and sort them out afterward...

* * *

Genji had been a Hunter-nin close to twenty years. Having been a ninja for so long, he had worked alongside Zabuza for far longer than he'd hunted Zabuza, and knew exactly how tough the guy actually was. When he had been ordered to try and track the man in Wave, he had been understandably nervous. It was his duty to bring his former comrade in however, and he was one of the best for the job to which he'd been assigned.

When he and his team had arrived in Wave and learned that Zabuza was hanging around in the local hospital because he'd run afoul of a Genin team from Konoha, he couldn't believe his luck. Actually, the first thing he couldn't believe was his ears, until someone had mentioned that Sharingan Kakashi was the Instructor for that particular Genin team and that the team had a Uchiha on it as well. When the team arrived at the hospital to retrieve their quarry, they arrived only to discover that their luck had not held.

When they had reached the hospital, there had been an ANBU team from Konoha there preparing Momochi Zabuza and his accomplice for transport. Not only that, but there was another Hunter team that he would have to share the credit with should they manage to wrest Zabuza away from the Konoha team hanging around as well. He could have sworn that the Captain had only sent one team out because the lead was so old though...

_Just who the heck are you? _He signed to the apparent leader of the Hunter team that was trying to impose Kiri's claim over Zabuza, and not getting results.

The response he got back was a rather shaky _Hi, I sent to help_. While the relative uncertainty of that response would be understandable if the Hunter Nin in question were civilian-born, the leader of the other team had prefaced his statement with a gesture he knew was a Konoha swear, as a friend of his had made it his duty to learn the swear signs of every country and had taught him a good number of them.

The anger he'd been feeling when he'd realized that his team had arrived a little too late rose to murderous levels. The Konoha ninja he could ignore for the moment since they didn't need that sort of mess, and the Konoha guys had gotten Zabuza fair and square. The other group however...A bunch of fucking impostors had been standing there trying to take the kill they would have snatched from the Konoha ninja if they had dropped their guard for even one second. Hopping mad at the impostors, he signaled his men to attack the fake Hunter-nin.

* * *

He was Root, and he served Danzo-sama as an extension of his will for the good of Konoha. That was all he needed to know about himself. He had no need of emotions, and therefore swallowed the slight uncertainty he'd felt when a team of genuine Kirigakure Hunter nin had shown up before the target could be eliminated. Had it just been the Konoha team that he'd needed to fool, things would have been fine, but now, he was not the best choice for this job. While he could almost perfectly imitate a Kiri Hunter nin in movements, tone of voice, and accent, there was one flaw in his training. He was not fluent in "Kiri".

Much to his dread which he rather swiftly buried as soon as it had appeared, the leader of the real team of Kirigakure Hunter nin signed something that looked like an interrogative. The two most likely choices considering the situation were "Who are you?" and "Why are you here?". He hedged his bets and signed back with both his personal call sign and the answer as to why he would be here were he a real Hunter nin from Kiri.

He had apparently made a mistake however, because the next thing he knew, he and his team were in a fight for their lives against the Kiri Hunter nin. A few minutes later, the Konoha ANBU joined the fray, and he didn't know exactly which side they were on since they seemed to be fighting just about everyone.

* * *

After the initial amazement at the ANBU fight that had suddenly erupted wore off and common sense stepped in, Naruto quickly got Zabuza and Haku under cover. At that moment, he didn't need anyone to tell him that, to put it politely, the fecal matter had hit the ventilation device. There were three teams of ANBU duking it out in the middle of the street, and anywhere near the immediate vicinity of that fight was most definitely not a good place for injured people, or anyone else for that matter to be.

Kunai were flying everywhere, as were fireballs, and Water jutsu, and defensive Earth walls, and trees for some strange reason. And, when he didn't think it could get any worse, the mist started up, obscuring the entire area and making it near impossible to see when to dodge. That didn't stop the fight however, as he could still hear the clang of steel, the roar of fire and water, and the rumble of earth being torn from its moorings.

_What the hell was that all about? _he wondered as the battle began to move off into the distance.

* * *

After several long moments of struggle Tenzo finally managed to wrap one of the fake Kiri Hunter-nin securely in the branches of his Mokuton technique, and bury him in the ground until only his head was showing. After the impostor was secure, he pulled off the man's mask. After studying the man's features, he realized that he didn't recognize him as a fellow ANBU or one of the rank and file, but noted that he resembled someone he had known during his days at the Academy. There were several top-secret groups that were rumored to exist in Konoha, and it was possible that the man belonged to one of them.

After memorizing the man's appearance, he rendered the man unconscious and drugged him for capture, hoping that he wasn't making a mistake in doing so, and that he hadn't harmed a fellow Konoha ninja who had been sent to help his team. He would have to report his findings to the Hokage, but it was possible that the man already knew.

As soon as the fake Hunter-nin was dealt with, he moved back to the battle that was following the path of the retreating fake Hunter-nin whose team his captive had been a member.

* * *

He was Root, and he served Danzo as an extension of his will for the good of Konoha. He had failed. He had been captured and was unable to complete his objective. He knew what to do in case of capture. He bit down on a seal inside his cheek, and it released a small amount of a fast acting poison into his system. It was enough. He was dead.

* * *

Back at the main battle, the Kirigakure Hunter-nin Genji hurled a Kunai at one of the Konoha shinobi that chased him through the mist. It didn't matter to him whether it was one of the fake Hunter nin or the team of ANBU who had joined the fight, adding to the general confusion when they attacked both his team and the team of impostors, they were all the same as far as he was concerned. The kunai failed to hit its target, and he nearly received a fireball to the posterior courtesy of a Katon Jutsu in return. The way things were going, the battle was turning into little more than a farce as everybody tried to fight everybody else in what was rapidly becoming a free for all that was going in circles and causing a great deal of collateral damage and little else. To add to the confusion, there were civilians fleeing everywhere.

Zabuza or no Zabuza, he was not going to let this continue. He was calling a retreat before something happened that brought humiliation to his village or worse, caused an international incident that sparked a war which Kiri most definitely didn't need at this time. As soon as his team extracted themselves from this debacle, they would regroup, head home, inform the Captain that Konoha had captured their quarry, and let the diplomats deal with it after they got that whole Mizukage mess sorted out.

Despite the fact that he was loath to leave a fight unfinished, he called a general retreat, and made for the sea with his remaining teammates and one of the Konoha ninja following behind.

**Edited 11-28-12**


	15. Wave: Return to Konoha

A week and a half after the three-way ANBU battle, Kakashi sighed in relief as he set foot on the newly completed bridge and took the first step on his journey home, glad that the mission from hell that he'd just completed with the completion of the bridge was finally over. He would say that Wave was a nice place to visit, not to live, but as far as he was concerned, it was neither. Give him Konoha any day of the week. Konoha where food was plentiful, he wasn't attacked by missing nin, and ANBU didn't hold battles royal in the street.

God, he'd even take the constant bickering of his students, which seemed to have cooled down a bit recently, over coming back here. He'd even be willing to take three straight days of Maito Gai doing nothing but pestering him about stupid challenges over coming back here. Hell, he almost felt like kissing Maito Gai the next time he saw him. Almost.

Come to think of it, he'd rather go on a vacation to Iwa than come back here.

* * *

In his cell in Konoha, Zabuza studied the Chakra Suppression Seal that had been placed on him by the ANBU team that had transported him to Konoha, since it gave him something to do while he waited. He was in ANBU custody, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before he was interrogated. Haku, who was the weaker of the two of them, had been taken already, and had been gone for over an hour.

As he finished examining the seal with little more than academic interest because his skills lay elsewhere, Haku returned to their holding cell looking pale and slightly shaken. He quickly squashed his feeling of worry at the sight of this as well as the number of increasingly horrifying scenarios that had cropped up as he gazed upon his servant's pale and shaken countenance which increased his own concerns for his own fate. Whatever they had done to to the boy had to have been really bad for him to have reacted this way, and while he didn't want to know because it would only bring down his own morale, he knew that he needed to know in order to know what to expect for his own interrogation.

"What did they do to you?" he asked.

"They took me to see the Hokage." Haku replied quietly.

"And?" he asked, wondering what the Hokage had done to the boy to make him this upset.

"He offered me a plot of land and a list of available women." Haku replied, holding up the sheaf of papers that in his distracted state he previously hadn't noticed were in the boy's hand.

"What did you say?" he asked, wondering if his tool, his weapon, his Haku had left him.

"I told him no, but he handed me the papers and told me to look them over and think about it." Haku replied.

Looking at those papers that could even now become the cause of Haku's eventual betrayal and departure, he understood why Haku was upset. Haku had already thought about it. It may have been for only a second or two, but the fact that he had even paused to seriously consider the offer had been enough to upset the boy whose life had revolved entirely around him for so long.

* * *

Back in Wave, Tazuna watched as Inari cried over the fact that his hero was leaving for Konoha. The boy had been good for Inari, had pulled him out of his shell, and started to turn him back to the somewhat happy boy he remembered from back before Gato had tried to destroy them. Naruto had been good for Wave as a whole as well. He had killed Gato, driven off his mercenaries, and given Inari and everyone else the courage to stand up and fight for what was theirs. Should Naruto return, there wasn't a home in the village that wouldn't open their doors to him despite the fact that he possessed an extremely dangerous unknown and unnatural power.

The other ninja from Konoha however...Let's just say that the old timers were strongly reminded of the reason why Wave had not given permission for another ninja village to form after Uzu fell and the former country of Whirlpool had reformed under a new name after being almost completely crushed. That reason could be summed up in only two words, and those words were: Collateral and Damage. There tended to be alot of it when ninja were around.

While only minimal and mostly cosmetic repair work had to be made to the bridge as a result of Naruto's rampage, an entire section of bridge had needed to be replaced thanks to the structural weakening and the internal damage caused by Kakashi's dogs burrowing into it. Then, on top of the damage to the bridge, there was the damage that had been caused to the town during the three-way ANBU free-for-all. Fortunately, this damage wasn't anywhere near as bad as it could have been, since the strange one with the red and blue cat mask had used a strange jutsu that was capable of creating habitable buildings that were up to code, and the team medic had tended to the injured civilians before they completely swamped Doctor Yoshida.

And people wondered why insurance premiums in the countries that had ninja villages were sky high...

As he watched Naruto and his team travel down the bridge he had decided to name after the boy who had defeated Gato and his minions and paved a way for a brighter future in Wave, and back toward Fire Country, he hoped that when he kept his promise to Inari and returned someday, he wouldn't bring anyone else with him. Things broke often enough around here without any outside interference, and they didn't need another bunch of ninja helping the process along.

* * *

"Home. Finally." Naruto muttered as he and the team took their first steps into Fire Country. "And I thought my first C rank was bad."

"Why?" Sakura asked. "What happened on your first C rank?"

"Satoshi gambled away all the travel funds, and I had to throw myself under a horse to get more money." he replied. "I'd heard about the "First C rank" curse, but I didn't believe it until then."

"How do you get money by throwing yourself under a horse?" Sasuke asked.

"You find the sort of drunk who thinks he can buy his way out of anything, and play dead while your teammates shake him for cash." he replied.

"But that's..." Sakura started, staring at him both horrified and at a loss for words. Sasuke just gave him a dubious glance as if he wasn't sure he should believe him or not.

"Hmm. Seem's Shimura's still up to his old tricks." Kakashi said.

"Who's Shimura?" Sakura asked.

"Naruto's former sensei." Kakashi replied. "He's something of a con artist."

"A con artist?" Sakura said, sounding stunned.

"His mother came from a family of Tea Country grifters." Kakashi said, sounding somewhat disapproving. "She taught him a few tricks of the trade, some are useful for a shinobi career, and some most definitely are not."

What the hell was Kakashi's problem? He couldn't still be sore about the way Tetsuo-sensei had weaseled a favor out of him, that was like ages ago. Tetsuo-sensei had told him the story last year, and it had been pretty damn funny.

After that exchange on the border of Fire Country, the team continued on their way, and eventually reached Konoha where Naruto found his old team waiting for him.

"Tetsuo-sensei" he yelled as he raced up to his teacher and gave him one of the flying tackle hugs he was still famous for despite all efforts to curb this impulse.

Shimura Tetsuo naturally went flying backward and hit the ground with Naruto on top of him squeezing the stuffing out of him. Suzume and Satoshi soon turned it into a group hug, which rapidly devolved into the bunch of them rough-housing in front of the village gates.

"Missed you too kid." Tetsuo replied as he ruffled Naruto's hair when they had finished playing. "Now what's this I hear about you taking out an A ranked missing nin and the head of a multinational corporation?"

* * *

Kakashi growled as he watched Naruto and his former teammates get up from where they had piled on top of their former sensei and started play fighting. What a perfect way to end the trip from hell. He'd thought that he'd made progress with Naruto when the boy had practically hovered over him when he was ill, but the instant Shimura showed up...

Naruto hadn't given him one of those flying tackle hugs since he'd taught him the Kage Bunshin. Sure, he threw the kid into a tree headfirst when he did so that one time, but still...

He'd be happy if the boy had shown him even half the amount of affection and respect he showed Shimura. The boy hadn't even shown him a quarter of the regard he gave the other man so far.

* * *

Sakura watched Naruto greet his "Tetsuo-sensei" and a pair of Chunin who'd been standing with the man in amazement. She had never seen him that happy, not even at the Academy. The closest to being that happy she'd ever seen Naruto had been when he was with Umino-sensei. Watching him now, it was almost as if she were looking at an entirely different person.

Had being on this team really made him that miserable. Had she made him that miserable?

The entire time he'd been with her, Sasuke-kun and Kakashi-sensei, he'd been unhappy, and suffering, and she had never once done anything to help, even back during the days at the Academy when he had followed her around like a lost puppy, taking all the abuse she dished out because it was a form of acknowledgment of his existence at least...

_"Sakura-chan, will you go out with me?" Naruto said for what had to be the millionth time as they returned from target practice._

_GRRR "NO!" SMACK_

_"Sakura-chan I got you something!" Naruto said, grinning from ear to ear as he held up a small white box._

_She opened the box, and a white frog jumped out. She shrieked._

_"Naruto! You jerk!" SMACK_

_Naruto looked stunned and disappointed by her reaction to the gift._

_"Sakura-chan, I..." Naruto started as he ran up to her yet again._

_SMACK._

_"Sakura-chan..." Naruto started as he moved to sit next to her._

_SMACK_

_"Sakura-chan..." Naruto started as he got off his favorite swing and raced over to her._

_SMACK_

Naruto may have been downright annoying back then, but she had been vicious and cruel, and people had allowed her to be this way because it was "Just Naruto". If she had done what she had done to someone else, her parents would have severely reprimanded her. Hell, the other kid's parents would have reprimanded her as well. So would the Academy Instructors and just about every other adult who witnessed her behavior. But, because it was just Naruto...

* * *

Despite the fact that he should be entirely focused on teaching the children in front of him, Iruka was subtly watching the clock as he waited for the day to end. Naruto was expected to get back today, and he wanted to see how the boy was doing since he'd heard some disturbing rumors involving the mission that Naruto had been on. He wanted to make sure the Naruto was alright, especially since his former pupil hadn't been adjusting to his new team all that well, and there would undoubtedly have been friction between Naruto and his teammates on their first mission outside the village no matter how well the mission had gone.

What had the Hokage been thinking putting Naruto on a team with Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura? Both Sasuke and Sakura hated Naruto. Back when the boy was at the Academy, if one wasn't abusing him, the other was, and Sasuke hadn't taken Naruto's early graduation all that well. In fact, he'd completely denied that it had happened.

Instead of being given a class of returnees as he had been expecting, he had been sent to replace an instructor who was out on Maternity Leave as an instructor for the Autumn rotation cycle class of 8-9 year-olds when the Academy came back in session in January. He suspected that the reason for this had been because of Konohamaru who had joined the class in January as well. The Hokage had trusted him to educate Naruto, and now, because he hadn't failed that trust, he was being trusted to educate the Hokage's grandson as well, and he would do his best not to fail him there either.

The Hokage's grandson was another reason he was constantly watching the clock because Naruto had taught Konohamaru the trick to moving the hands of the clock forward without the teacher noticing, and the boy had decided to become a miniature copy of Naruto, pranks and all. Fortunately, he had learned to wear a watch years ago.

* * *

Konohamaru sat in his seat practically vibrating in excitement as the seconds ticked down towards the end of the school day. Naruto would be back soon, he just knew it. Naruto would be back, and they would have alot of fun together, and Naruto would teach him something new, and tell him about all of the adventures he had...

59 minutes and 37 seconds to go before he could get out of here and see if Naruto had returned.

36.

35.

34...

* * *

The Hokage sighed when Team 7 left his office after making their report. Thanks to them, he would be forced to open negotiations with Kiri, which would be somewhat more difficult than usual since there was a vacancy where there should be a Mizukage, because he had two missing nin from Kiri that he didn't exactly know what to do with. The fact that he'd offered one of them the standard Kekkei Genkai bonus package could raise issues considering the fact that Zabuza's follower wasn't officially a ninja and could technically still be considered a citizen of Water Country since he hadn't officially renounced that right. Then, there was that free-for-all in Wave that he was certain was entirely Danzo's fault, as it had been his ninjas who had started the whole fracas when they pretended to be a team of Hunter nin from Kiri piled on top of what was already a touchy situation. Either one of these issues would be a headache to deal with, both of them combined made the situation a migraine of epic proportions.

Why was it that whenever Naruto got within a mile of a citizen from Kirigakure, he was stuck dealing with some sort of diplomatic incident?

**Edited 11-28-12**


	16. Chunin Exams: Suna Arrivals

Sakura panted as she dodged Kamizuki Suzume's blow. The spar, as always, was far more intense than any of the workouts she had gotten during her regular training. In addition to her daily training with Team 7, and the D rank missions she was now grateful for after having experienced a C-Rank and seeing how badly missions could go wrong once one left Konoha's gates, she trained with Suzume three afternoons a week when the other girl wasn't on missions. Naruto had introduced them to each-other shortly after she had asked him what she would need to do in order to prepare for the Chunin Exams when they returned to Konoha back in April, several weeks after she had come to the epiphany that her life, whichever course it ended up taking, could only begin after she passed the Chunin Exams.

She remembered the look on Naruto's face when he'd asked her if she was serious. That look of shock and incredulity that had crossed the boy's face had hurt. Had she really acted as if she hadn't taken being a ninja seriously so much that when she finally wanted to do something above and beyond what she had been doing she was met with surprise and disbelief? Sure, she had spent an inordinate amount of time on the pursuit of her future husband, but she had still studied and trained. Apparently not enough however, as the mission in Wave and her training with Naruto's former teammate clearly illustrated. But, she had trained nonetheless.

Eventually, after taking several blows her training session with Suzume ended, and both girls parted ways. She had learned from Naruto that Suzume's goal was to start her own dojo after she retired from the shinobi forces, and she believed the girl could do it. Not only was Suzume skilled in the martial arts, but she was a good teacher and she could also see why Naruto liked her so much, because she was a good and kind - if somewhat strict - person as well.

After parting ways with Suzume, she headed home for dinner. When she arrived, her mom was in the kitchen preparing the meal which, much to her relief, seemed to be traditional fare rather than one of her frequent experiments this evening. Sometimes, her mother's kitchen experiments were appreciated, but most often, they were not. After inspecting the evening meal and finding it to be edible, she went upstairs to shower and change, and when she came down, dinner was ready.

"So, how was your day?" her mother asked her when everyone was settled at the table.

Her father tried to look interested in her reply, but had grown so used to years of girl talk since he was completely outnumbered in that area that he automatically tuned everything out. She could tell that he was tuning her out again, because her dad's eyes had that slightly glazed over look that said "I'll nod at appropriate intervals so I don't end up on the couch, otherwise, I'm not listening."

"Training went better than usual, as it's been going since Sasuke quit trying to pick fights with Naruto. They still don't seem to like each-other, but at least they're not arguing." She started, as she picked up her rice bowl.

"Our mission today was walking dogs, it wasn't so bad. There was a rather funny incident where a dog that was almost the size of a horse tried to pull Kakashi-sensei's arms out of their sockets." She continued before taking a bite of her rice which fortunately didn't have any exotic spices added to it this evening. "After the mission, I trained with Suzume-san for a bit."

"I don't see why you hang out with that girl." her mother said disapprovingly. "Someone who spends that much time with that Uzumaki boy isn't..."

"Isn't what mother? Suzume is a loyal shinobi of Konoha and a Chunin." she said, upset that her mother was harping on that again. "She has volunteered to train me when she could be occupying what little free time she has with something more worthwhile out of the kindness of her heart."

"But still..." her mother started.

She sighed. She loved her mother, but there were times when the woman could be absolutely trying. She wasn't going to stop "hanging out" with Suzume. Suzume was helping her get ready to pass the Chunin Exams when she took them next year, end of discussion.

* * *

Momochi Zabuza shifted uncomfortably as he waited in the Mizukage's office more than two months after he'd been captured by that team from Konoha, and less than a week after Konoha had turned him over to Kiri. Practically the instant the Godaime had been selected, the Hokage had shipped him back to Kiri with an admonition of "Don't let us catch you again". Instead of being immediately executed as he had expected to be upon arrival, he had been brought to meet with the Godaime Mizukage, whoever he was.

After what had been an interminable wait, the door to the room finally opened, and a very familiar woman with exceedingly long auburn hair and green eyes who was dressed in rather revealing clothing walked in. Instead of announcing the Mizukage's immanent arrival, the woman calmly walked across the room and seated herself at the desk that had once belonged to Yagura and whoever that asshole who had been controlling him had been. He'd liked Yagura before he became Mizukage, and had only reluctantly decided to kill him and take his place to end the bloodshed his rule had caused. The idea of being Mizukage himself hadn't been all that bad either, Mizukage Momochi had a rather nice ring to it, and he probably would have succeeded in his endeavor despite the Sanbi, if the jerk who had been pulling Yagura's strings hadn't interfered.

He was sharply pulled out of his musings about what had happened the last time he'd set foot in this office by a sudden realization...Mei was the Mizukage? Mei was a few years older than him, and he'd dated her a couple of times, so he knew that she was the sort of woman who was very capable at whatever she set her mind to, but Mizukage?

"Most of my current advisors have advised me to have you publicly executed to further cement my position." the new Mizukage said. "You seem to have a great deal of popular support, and would therefore be a threat to me."

"I am not about to hand over my new hat so soon after I got it, and you know full well that if it came down to a fight, I would win." Mei continued, leaning forward slightly as she shifted position, and probably rather deliberately giving him a better view of her cleavage.

"I am always in need of capable advisors." Mei said, shifting back to a less revealing position. "That is why I came up with a solution that would satisfy both of us, and some of the Traditionalists who don't believe a woman should be in power as well. Should you refuse my offer, or attempt to take my position, I will be forced to kill you, and that is something I would seriously regret, especially considering our friendship."

It was at that point that the new Mizukage opened a drawer of her desk, pulled out a small velvet box, and tossed it to him. He caught it, and cautiously opened it, hoping that it wasn't trapped or something. What was inside was a trap, but not one in the traditional sense. It was a gold ring. He now had two choices: Accept the offer it represented, or die.

"Congratulations Zabuza-sama." Haku said before he could give his answer.

* * *

It had been the angered yells that had drawn Naruto's attention while he had been wandering the village with no destination in particular, since he couldn't think of anything else to do since he'd finished his training for the day and hadn't been in the mood to sit still with a book. When he arrived at the site of the confrontation which was taking place on the road just inside the main gate that had attracted his notice, it had been to see Satoshi being attacked by someone from the arriving Suna delegation who was dressed in an outfit that resembled the costume of a Bunraku puppeteer. The bunraku boy's teammates and Jounin sensei held back to remain with the boy while the main group which seemed to consist of eight or nine other teams made their way past them and to the Administration Complex. He could easily guess why Satoshi had been attacked, because it was almost always the reason why Satoshi ended up being involved in fights these days. He'd gotten caught swiping something.

"Damn it Satoshi!" he yelled as he moved to aid the Chunin. "How many times have you been told not to steal from our allies?"

"Sorry about that." he said to the members of the Suna team when he arrived. "Satoshi here's a bit of a kleptomaniac."

"It's okay." the Jounin replied with an amused smile. "Kankuro here needed a lesson on why hiding his more valuable possessions is a good idea."

As he and the Suna Jounin conversed, several Chunin who had apparently been alerted to the confrontation by the gate guards broke the fight up, and from the looks of things, Satoshi would be spending at least a week in jail. It would probably be good for him. Tetsuo-sensei was always saying that he needed something to shake him up and teach him his lesson. Jail and a black mark on his record probably wouldn't be enough however, which was a pity since despite his compulsion to steal anything and everything, Satoshi was a very good ninja. He'd hate to see him dismissed from the ranks over something like this.

"How about I show you a shortcut to the Administration Complex, so you can get signed in, and afterward I'll show you where the best places to eat are." he said after Satoshi had been hauled away, hoping to sooth relations between them and Konoha a bit.

"Thank you." the Jounin said. "I really don't want us to be too much trouble though."

"No trouble at all." he replied. "I didn't have anything else to do this evening, and Satoshi used to be my teammate until he got promoted, so it's the least I can do."

* * *

As he followed the blond boy's lead, Gaara studied the boy named Naruto, wondering what the boy had done to earn such antipathy from the civilian population. When he'd first noticed the stares of the villagers, he had thought that they had been directed at him, and had a great deal of difficulty not killing the people outright as Mother called for their blood. If he had done so, the plan that had been put in place by his father and the village elders would be ruined and they would be forced to flee. While he personally didn't care if that happened, the results of his ruining his father's plans would cause more irritation than they were worth, as he would never hear the end of it. And, if he killed father in order to shut him up, he would never hear the end of that either, even if he eliminated the entire population of Suna. Mother would most likely bring it up to annoy him, and Mother wasn't going anywhere.

It was when he heard the comments that he realized that the cold stares from the civilians weren't directed at him, but at their guide through the village instead. How could the cheerful boy who was currently guiding them to his favorite restaurant on their way their new quarters ignore all of that? How could he go day to day listening to that, and not want to kill the people around him? He wanted to kill them after less than five minutes. Heck, he'd wanted to kill them after less than five seconds.

Without seeming to want anything in return, the boy named Naruto had offered to show them around. Not Kankuro, not Temari, not Baki, all of them. He knew that the boy couldn't have failed to notice the fear with which his siblings and teammates had regarded him, but despite that, the boy had still treated him with the same kindness as he had the others. Even though he felt hesitation because of this, there was still the question over whether or not the boy was strong enough that killing him would validate his existence, Mother was...uncertain about him.

As the boy led the way to the restaurant - ignoring the stares and comments along the way - he nattered on about some team who had been throwing snowballs during the Chunin Exams in Kiri a year and a half ago. Temari, Kankuro, and Baki found this story very amusing for some strange reason. He didn't find it all that entertaining however.

Finally, after following the boy through several winding streets, the group arrived at a stand called Ichiraku that apparently sold ramen. While ramen wasn't his favorite food, it wasn't his least favorite food either. It wasn't all that common in Suna actually, and he'd only had it maybe once or twice before, so he hadn't formed much of an opinion of it. Kankuro and Temari didnt seem all that happy about the boy's choice, but they didn't seem too dismayed either. Baki just shrugged, smiled, and took a seat next to the one the boy was moving towards. Apparently, no insult had been intended by the boy's selection of eatery.

"Hey! Teuchi-san! I brought you some more customers!" the blond boy called out to the stand's proprietor as soon as he was seated.

Unlike the treatment the boy received from the village's other civilians, the greeting Naruto received from the proprietor of the stand was cheerful and enthusiastic. He could see why this place would be the boy's favorite restaurant. Even if the food wasn't the best, the atmosphere alone was...relatively pleasant.

* * *

Baki watched the boy that intelligence had indicated was the Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune interact with Gaara. The difference between the two boys was like night and day. Where Gaara was cold and withdrawn, Naruto was open and rather friendly, and he could tell that it mostly wasn't an act to put him and his students off their guard. Based on the behavior of the civilian population, it had not been their actions towards the boy that had made the difference between him and Gaara which made him wonder all the more what had.

As he watched the boy converse with his students and eat, he ate a meal of his own. While ramen wasn't his favorite food, it was acceptable. The name of the stand's owner was fitting for a ninja village as it could mean both "To make noodles by hand" and "To kill with one's bare hands". Based on the looks he was receiving from the man, the man was fully willing to try to live up to the second meaning of his name if he made any untoward moves towards Konoha's Jinchuriki.

Perhaps that was the difference between the two boys..The few people who actually cared for the Kyuubi's Jinchuriki had gotten to him in time.

**Edited 11-28-12**


	17. Chunin Exams: Mizukage Marriage

Zabuza still couldn't figure out how Mei had managed to throw together a traditional wedding so fast. The wedding had happened a week after Mei had made her ultimatum, rather than after the months it usually took to properly plan and arrange such an undertaking, and the only way he could think of how that could have happened was that she had everything ready and waiting for when she finally netted a husband, and only had to schedule the time of the wedding. All he really knew was that it had happened so fast that it had made his head spin. Practically one minute he was a erm, relatively free man, and the next, he had a Mrs. Momochi hanging off his arm.

At this moment, he could consider himself to be rather fortunate. He was alive and he had a beautiful wife, and things could have been worse, alot worse. Still...Being married to the Mizukage had not been one of his stated goals in life. Admittedly, the first four were male but, still...

As they negotiated the crowd of well-wishers and ass-kissers that had shown up to congratulate the new couple, Mei latched onto his arm as if she was almost afraid that he'd try to escape. Haku hovered nearby, ready to provide protection if it were needed. Considering the fact that Mei had two Kekkei Genkai, it probably wouldn't be.

"How many kids do you plan on having?" some guy in the crowd asked as they passed by.

Kids? Oh, god. He could see it now. Even if they inherited only one of Mei's Kekkei Genkai, it would be bad enough when they start discovering their powers...

_**A kid with dark reddish brown hair and brown eyes argues with his or her black haired, green-eyed older sibling. All of a sudden, the Mizukage residence where he was stuck living as a house husband starts filling up with lava...**_

Thank the gods that Haku would be there to sort things out.

* * *

The evening before the Chunin Exams were to start, Kankuro made his way to the Barbecue restaurant that that blond ninja had pointed out on the way back to Suna's quarters on his first day here. Tomorrow was the first day of the Chunin Exams, and he figured that it would be well worth the expense to have a good dinner before they happened in case he didn't survive what was coming next. On his way to the restaurant, he saw a reasonably attractive civilian woman following a masked, one-eyed shinobi who seemed to be doing his level best to ignore her. The civilians in Suna had learned not to try something like that long ago because if a shinobi didn't want attention, they didn't want attention, and clinging to them would more than likely result in severe injuries on the civilian's part.

"...Don't see how you can stand putting up with him." the woman said to the shinobi who looked like he dearly wanted to shake the woman off but didn't quite dare to do so for some reason. "And now, he's hanging around with foreigners. I wouldn't be surprised if his father was from Iwa..."

It was at that point that the shinobi finally decided to react. If he hadn't been a shinobi himself, he probably wouldn't have noticed it, and would have thought it an accident like most of the other passersby had. Most of the streets in Konoha were simply hard packed dirt as they had been since the founding of the village. While there wasn't too much dust due to certain dust control methods which had been put in place, including D ranked missions assigned during the driest part of the year, there was the occasional mud puddle here or there either after it rained, or there was a spill of some sort. In a lightning fast move, the shinobi tripped the woman, knocked her into a particularly large and somewhat scummy looking puddle that the other pedestrians had been avoiding, and continued on his way as if nothing had happened, having apparently reached the end of his rope and decided that doing so was worth the potential consequences should he be caught.

As he continued on his way to the restaurant, chuckling over the stupidity of the woman who had apparently insulted a friend of the shinobi, several people moved to help the woman who was shrieking as if someone had just tried to murder her. The place he was going to was owned by one of the local ninja clans, and it was totally awesome. He'd been there once before, and he could completely understand how the Akimichi got so fat.

* * *

Temari sighed as she walked through the park that had supposedly been built shortly after the founding of the village in a joint effort between the Shodai Hokage and the head of the Uchiha clan, which had been pointed out to her by the blond Konoha Genin on the way to register for the Exams which would be starting the next day. There were trees and flowers everywhere she cared to look as she wandered the main path. Both were a rather rare sight back in Suna since only the hardiest of plants grew in the deep desert where her home was located.

Briefly pausing in her tracks, she bent over to smell one of the roses that grew on the well tended bushes that lined the cobblestone path.

It was a real pity that this would all be gone soon. Both her village and Otogakure would be razing the village to the ground in a little over a month if things went according to plan. A park like this, no matter how nice, would not survive the coming battle.

* * *

Gaara felt slightly apprehensive about going to the ramen stand while the boy named Naruto wasn't there. While the man who ran the stall treated him like just another customer while his "best customer" was there, he wasn't entirely certain that he would be treated the same if he weren't, and he wasn't too sure how he would react if he were treated differently. The man who had run the ramen stand had been one of the few people in his life to actually be nice to him, and expect little to nothing in return.

When he reached Ichiraku Ramen, he took an available seat next to a black haired shinobi and waited. The owner noticed him after a few seconds.

"Welcome." the man said warmly, giving him a genuine smile as he did so.

Despite the fact that Naruto wasn't here to protect him or whatever, the man wasn't trembling, and there wasn't any fear in his eyes. The man actually seemed to appreciate his presence. Relieved that this was so, he made his order, which the man promptly began to prepare.

That settled it. When the time for the invasion came, he was going to have this man kidnapped and brought to Suna.

* * *

Preparing for the upcoming Chunin Exams which Kakashi had only just informed him that he'd signed the team up for that afternoon, Naruto carefully inspected his equipment, discarding anything that was irreparable. He would buy replacements for everything he discarded at the local supply store once he was done. If the exams followed the same format they had in Kiri, there would be a test of information gathering skills followed by a test of team survival skills. He and his equipment would both need to be in top form during the second portion of the Exams.

Fortunately here, things would go differently since he held the home-ground advantage. He knew the forests surrounding the village like the back of his hand from all of the time he spent playing in them. He knew just about every rock, tree, and hunting trap for miles around in any direction. He would be able to tell if anything was off long before he reached any traps or ambushes, and react accordingly.

This time, he would pass. This time, nobody on his team would be injured. This time, none of his comrades would die...

Once he finished examining and sorting his supplies, he started sharpening his shuriken and kunai.

* * *

Sakura went to inform Suzume that they wouldn't be meeting the next day because she had been entered into the Chunin Exams. She had almost forgotten to do so in her excitement, and it was only when she had been mentally going over her Taijutsu skills that she'd realized that she had a training session scheduled with Suzume tomorrow. This was six months earlier than she had expected to be entered, but she would be ready, she had to be.

Three months ago, she would have been uncertain about this, and spent the entire night worrying over whether she should take the exams or not, and she would have decided to take them in the end because Sasuke would be taking them, and she didn't want Sasuke to leave her behind. Now, she was going to take the Exams, because they were the next step towards her future goal, and she would pass on her own merits, and for her own reasons. While she didn't want Sasuke to leave her behind, that wouldn't be the only reason she would be taking the exams.

The Chunin Exams were the first major step on the road to her future, and she would need to pass them to find where that road would lead.

* * *

As he got some last-minute training in, Sasuke pummeled the training post in front of him with his fists, imagining that it was That Man. He would be taking the Chunin Exams tomorrow, and he needed to be in top form. Kakashi had sprung their entry into the Chunin Exams on them as a surprise only that afternoon when he'd turned them loose from the day's training.

If he'd informed them say, whenever it was that he'd entered them, he would have had more time to train and prepare. As it was, he was stuck getting in a great deal of last minute training, and hoping that he wouldn't be too exhausted tomorrow morning when they went to take the first test. That Boy had told him to expect something along the lines of an information gathering exercise which would be followed by a survival test of some sort that included combat.

In order to prepare for the coming ordeal, he would train for a few more hours, and then he would gather any equipment he thought necessary for the exams.

* * *

As the moon rose higher in the sky, causing the barred windows to cast bands of shadow, Satoshi lay back on the bunk in his cell. The last six days had been boring as hell. He would be getting out tomorrow, but not in time for the exams, so he wouldn't be playing Genin plant as he had been assigned to be before he'd gotten arrested. He wondered if Naruto was entered into this one, as he hadn't said a word about it when he'd dropped by to visit. He was pretty sure that he would have said something before now if he were entered but, then again, Naruto hadn't visited him since his first day here because he wanted him to "Learn his lesson".

He honestly couldn't believe that he'd got caught stealing from a measly Genin. Just for that, he was going to rob Bunraku boy and his teammates blind before they went home.

* * *

Tetsuo smiled as he played with his daughter who was crawling around, and making a mess out of a pile of blocks. Tomorrow, Naruto would be taking the Chunin Exams, and he wouldn't be able to be there for him, because Hatake Kakashi was his sensei on paper. He could still wish him luck and cheer him on however, and he would be doing just that.

Satoshi would be getting out of jail tomorrow afternoon as well. He sometimes wondered where he went wrong with the boy, and then he remembered that it wasn't him. His wife was a bit like Satoshi, but had sworn to quit stealing if he quit conning people. So far, they both had technically kept their word. The beloved missus for whom he'd happily sacrifice anything and everything had caught his attention when she had lifted his wallet, and he had gotten hers when he conned her out of the 25,000 ryo she had stolen from him.

It had been love at first sight. He'd known it when he'd taken back merely what she'd stolen from him and nothing more. If she'd just been a job to him, he would have gotten more than that piddling sum.

* * *

The Hokage held the unopened letter he'd just received from the Mizukage, almost dreading what would be inside. Considering the way his luck had been going in regards to Kirigakure lately, there was a good chance that it would be another mess that would need to be sorted out. Just what he needed when he was already busy dealing with the Chunin Exams...

Eventually, after a great deal of deliberation, he decided to open the letter and get it over with the way one would finally rip off a band-aid. The sooner he read it, the sooner he could deal with whatever it was that needed to be dealt with. Anticipating the worst, he broke the seal and opened the scroll.

Here goes nothing...

Huh?

All that worry over nothing. It was just a letter apologizing to him for not inviting him to the wedding between the new Mizukage and one Momochi Zabuza. Well, that was...Unexpected.

* * *

After getting home and feeding his dogs, Kakashi ate his own meal in silence. Today had been a rather trying day, and tomorrow would be nerve-wracking. He had entered his team into the Chunin Exams much the way Minato-sensei had entered him and his first team shortly after they'd graduated, so they could see exactly what they were up against and become determined to do better next time. It was best to set them up for failure now, so they would know what they needed in order to succeed later.

Unlike him himself when he had been first sent to the Exams, his team most likely wouldn't make it through, as they were barely willing to work with each-other, and several larger, stronger, older, and more unified teams had been entered from Konoha alone. Right now, they were marginally better than they had been before the C rank from hell, but it didn't seem to be enough.

He would be there for them though, and he would wish them luck even though luck wouldn't be enough in this case.

* * *

In the Mizukage Tower in Kiri, Haku stood guard outside the door to the Mizukage's bedroom. He was going to make sure that nobody would intrude on this most important of nights. Back in the village he'd lived near when he was little, it had been something of a tradition to make alot of noise outside of the home of a newlywed couple on their wedding night. He had a feeling that Zabuza-sama wouldn't appreciate that though, and therefore had kept any local well-wishers away accordingly.

As he began to drift off, there was a loud yell that pulled him out of his half-awake state. Before he could even think, he raced into the room from which the yell came only to find that Zabuza-sama and the new Mizukage were in a tangle of limbs and covers on the bed, and that there were no signs of intruders or a fight.

"Haku." Zabuza said, sounding somewhat irritated.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Get. Out."

Blushing so badly that his normally exceedingly pale face probably looked like a tomato, he complied with his master's orders.

**Edited 11-28-12**


	18. Chunin Exams: Kabuto the Showoff

Inuzuka Kiba swallowed his nervousness as he entered the room in which the first stage of the Chunin Exams was to take place. There had been some sort of logjam in the corridor on the second floor due to some sort of commotion that had been caused by a few Chunin hopefuls, but that hadn't been much of a problem for his team since Hinata had helped them negotiate it with little difficulty.

The room in which the test was to take place was one of the classrooms at the Academy. It had a somewhat different layout than the classroom he'd been assigned to when he attended the Academy however, as instead of the tiered seating he'd grown used to over the years he'd spent as a student, all of the desks were on one level. Adding to the somewhat foreign atmosphere was the fact that the room was completely packed with teenagers, all of whom looked older than him and his team. They were clustered in small groups and lounging around on the desks, chairs, and floor, and they looked to be from just about everywhere Kiri, Suna, you name it. While a large number of them were just silently waiting for what was to come, most were carrying on hushed conversations both spoken and in sign. Just being here just about put him into sensory overload thanks to all of the unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells. Fortunately, he had his teammates to ground him.

The Ino-Shika-Cho team showed up a couple minutes after his team's arrival. With the exception of Shikamaru who always seemed relaxed, they looked as nervous as he felt. Ino was twitching slightly as she surveyed the room and took in what he had minutes earlier, and Chouji was betraying his anxiety by eating at a far more rapid pace than normal. All three clustered together a little more tightly than they had when they first walked into the room, as if seeking comfort from companions they had known all their lives.

Team 7 showed up about a minute later, making it the entire Rookie 8 Plus 1 that had been entered into the Exams. Sakura looked rather nervous, and both Sasuke and Naruto had serious expressions on their faces. Naruto, having taken the exams before, obviously knew exactly what he and his team were up against. It was still strange however to see such a serious expression on Naruto's face, and such a stillness in his movements. The Naruto he'd known at the Academy had never worn such and expression, and had never been able to sit completely still. Naruto had been even louder and wilder than him back then. Sasuke however, Sasuke always looked grim.

Practically the instant Team 7 arrived, Ino started molesting Sasuke, while trading what had become her usual greeting with Sakura since they had decided to become rivals over a boy that couldn't care less about either of them, instead of the best of friends that they used to be. Completely ignoring Sasuke's plight, Naruto exchanged greetings with Shikamaru and Chouji who he and Naruto used to hang out with on occasion while Naruto was still in the Academy. Sasuke himself pretended he wasn't being fought over by a pair of fangirls, and ignored, or rather pretended to ignore, everyone else in the group.

Since everyone was here, he decided to lead his team over to the two other teams to say hi, as it had been a while since he'd seen them, and almost two years since he'd last talked to Naruto when he'd interrupted one of the boy's D ranks the Summer after Sasuke had started his "Naruto the dropout" kick. That, and Hinata had the damnedest crush on the Uzumaki boy, and if he didn't get her to say hi to him, nothing would. While he and Naruto hadn't exactly been friends, they had ditched the Academy together often enough to almost be considered such, and the little group he, Naruto, Shikamaru, and Chouji had formed hadn't exactly been the same without him. Naruto had been the high-spirited omega of the pack, and even though the boy had constantly challenged each of the others' positions in the group, he'd always gotten knocked back down to the bottom. Now however, it almost seemed as if Naruto was the alpha of his own pack.

After getting a closer look at Sasuke's misfortune, he exchanged greetings with the group of former classmates that he'd only seen in passing since the Academy as he'd been too busy to make much time to visit with them. Shikamaru mumbled a vague greeting, but then again, that was his style. Naruto smiled at Hinata, nearly causing her to faint, and Chouji made one of his usual jokes about wanting to eat Akamaru who had yet to hit his growth spurt. (The dogs that the Inuzuka kept were much smarter than, and lived much longer than ordinary dogs, and would usually hit a growth spurt at around three to four years of age during which they would rapidly shoot up to their full adult size.) Sasuke ignored him as usual, and Sakura and Ino were still too busy arguing over Sasuke to really notice them.

"Hey Kabuto. You failed again I see." Naruto said when a gray haired boy or possibly young man - as he appeared to be somewhere between his mid teens and very early twenties - walked up to the group to tell them to keep it down.

"Actually I missed the Winter Exams because I was sick." the boy named Kabuto replied.

"You know him?" Ino asked, distracted from Sasuke by the newcomer who seemed to be the type that girls squealed over and called "cute" as he had the even features of most males that were regarded as such.

"Yeah, I met him during the Kiri exams. He's Yakushi Kabuto, Medic, and quite possibly the next Eternal Genin. He's failed the exams six times so far." Naruto replied.

"Next Eternal Genin?" he asked.

There was actually someone who had really earned the moniker of The Eternal Genin? He'd thought that was an urban legend, like the clan of ninjas that supposedly lived in the sewers.

"Yeah, the Eternal Genin's this really neat old guy who's been a Genin since the days of the Nidaime." Naruto replied, and what's more, he could tell that the other boy was actually telling the truth, or had gotten way way better at lying over the past two and a half years.

"I went on a mission with him once last year. He's a really good cook, and he tells the best stories." Naruto continued, looking slightly nostalgic.

Most of the others in the group stared at Naruto in disbelief, as if they thought the more experienced Genin was having them on. He almost thought that as well. It was just the sort of thing that an older Genin would pull on the "rookies".

"Hey, you still got those cards you showed my team back in Kiri?" Naruto asked Kabuto.

"Yes." The boy named Kabuto said, deflating slightly.

It looked like Kabuto had wanted to show off for the newbies, and Naruto had just ruined the surprise.

"Got one on Maruboshi Kosuke?" Naruto asked, grinning evilly.

"...Yes." the Kabuto boy said reluctantly as he pulled out a deck of orange cards with the kanji for "Shinobi" written on the backs in black, and grabbed one from somewhere near the bottom.

Kabuto then flipped the card over to reveal a blank white face which changed to show information after he'd spun it around under his middle finger for a while. On the card, the picture of a man who looked to be around the same age as the Sandaime, maybe even older was revealed. There was a listing of the number of missions the man had taken, which included over 2,500 D ranks alone. Next to that was a grid that showed his skill set, which was amazingly powerful, if he was reading the chart right. There were three other, much smaller pictures on the card, one of a boy, one of a girl, and one of a man with an old-fashioned haircut who looked to be wearing one of the early Jounin uniforms.

"Maruboshi Kosuke." the boy named Kabuto said. "Voluntarily remained a Genin for over five decades, after making a stupid mistake during the Chunin Exams, and getting his two teammates killed."

Kabuto gave Naruto a significant glance after this statement, and got a cold glare from Naruto in return. There was apparently some history behind this, and he could tell that it wasn't good. It probably had something to do with the fact that Naruto had failed the Exams during his first try a year and a half ago. There had been a large number of rumors about that floating around, and he hadn't been sure what to believe back then, or even now.

After Kabuto had placed Maruboshi Kosuke's card back in the deck, Sasuke requested information on someone named Rock Lee, and someone named Gaara. Kabuto obligingly pulled the requisite cards from the deck apparently still hoping to impress the rookie Genin despite Naruto ruining the show as Naruto muttered "When'd he run into Gaara?". Apparently, Naruto already knew one of the people that Sasuke was asking about.

"Amazing." Kabuto said after he'd pulled up the requested information on Gaara after a short lecture on some boy who had been in the Spring Cycle class and graduated six months before them. "A Genin, and he's already been on a B rank mission."

"I got one of those on my record." Naruto said, not sounding too impressed. "I caught some dumb-ass Chunin who was trying to steal from the Hokage. The Old Man didn't pay me because I'd been there to prank him, and because "The damage caused exceeded the appropriate amount of remuneration for such a mission"."

"Well, apparently Gaara's returned from all of his missions completely uninjured, which is more than you can say." Kabuto said snippily, apparently somewhat upset with Naruto for ruining his fun.

After his little display, and a number of cutting remarks aimed at Naruto, Kabuto launched into a lecture on the Exams themselves, and the countries that would be participating, making it obvious that he was completely shunning Naruto as he did so, which was pretty damn funny since Kabuto was an omega type and Naruto had evolved into an Alpha. The lecture came to an end when Kabuto had somehow ended up in a fight with some ninja from a new village called Otogakure and he got his ass handed to him after he had started talking about them. As the fight was coming to an end, the Proctors finally made their dramatic entrance.

Dramatic entrances had to be like a prerequisite for being a ninja or something...

* * *

As he sat waiting, Naruto felt his leg twitching as the seconds ticked down toward the time when he would flip his test over and get started. As he listened to the proctor announce the rules for this test, it became obvious to him that it was information gathering like he had suspected. Two points off for cheating?

As Satoshi had told him when he'd visited the other boy this morning, the first part of the exam was easy for someone who had passed it before to get past, it was the second part that was hard, since there was no predicting how that could go. When they were in Iwa, Satoshi, Suzume, and Kurosaki had to navigate a rather rocky arid region that wasn't quite desert during a heat wave. Their objective had been to find the other half of some object they had been given which had been hidden within a set area before another team could get their hands on it, and make their way to a rendezvous point within three days.

While the second part of the exams usually followed along the simple lines of survival in wilderness while grabbing the counterpart to what you were given before someone else got it or outright grabbing it from someone else who it was given to at the start, the real danger of that portion of the exam wasn't the unfamiliar terrain, it was the other teams. While he had the home-ground advantage here unless they were forced to enter one of the closed off areas that had been inaccessible even to him throughout his childhood, his team would be perfectly fine on the "Unfamiliar terrain" aspect, it would be the other teams he would constantly have to worry about until that portion of the Exams came to an end. While the Genin from Konoha wouldn't kill their own, those from other countries probably wouldn't hesitate to kill them, and if even one member of their team was unable to continue due to injury, all three of them would fail the second portion of the exams.

Eventually, the time to turn the test papers over and get a start on the First Phase of the Exams finally came. After he turned his over, he looked over the questions to see if there were any he could answer before resorting to cheating, since he didn't have that bit fully planned out, and he thought setting off an explosive tag and copying off the person next to him while everyone was distracted would get him thrown out, no matter how "innovative" it was. Crap. The problems were beyond tough. While he could probably figure out the code, the rest was beyond him. This stuff was high Chunin, about to become Jounin crap. It looked like he was going to have to catch someone cheating and do what they did if it were a copyable method. He wouldn't be able to do this more than once or twice however, and he'd have to shift methods every time, because if he caught them cheating, then it was certain that the supervising Chunin would as well.

As he worked out his plan, he heard a small noise coming from the person seated next to him. He turned, and noted to his surprise that it was Hinata. He was so used to the girl these days that he barely registered her presence unless she deliberately did something to gain his attention which she almost never did. He knew that the girl had a crush on him since she constantly stalked him, hanging around at the edges of his peripheral vision, but, thanks to Suzume who had experience in that area, he knew better than to approach her about it. He wasn't too bothered by her presence since she was nice enough, and he thought she would be a good friend if she got over her shyness, but he still didn't approach her. With Hinata, it was like Suzume said, it was like hand taming a small bird, you don't try to force the issue as that would cause the bird to fly away, you wait for the bird to come to you.

"If you'd like to copy off my test..." the girl started shyly, almost as if she were afraid to speak as she offered her test to him.

_Thanks. _He signed in reply, as he quickly looked over her test and copied down the answer to only one of the two problems that she'd filled out already.

There, that was one problem out of the way...

* * *

Kabuto growled as his gaze landed on Naruto while he was looking around the room pretending to be trying to cheat. The only bit of enjoyment he got out of these crappy exams was showing off for the newbies, and Naruto had to go and ruin it for him. If Naruto hadn't been there, he was certain that the newbies would have been properly amazed and intimidated by his display, especially with that little show he'd arranged with the team from Oto.

In Konoha, he was merely a Genin - and not regarded as an example of a very good one at that, despite his status as a medic - and naturally had to take the exams in order to attain a promotion since field promotions were very seldom handed out during peacetime. Despite the fact that he was ostensibly attempting to obtain a promotion, he deliberately threw the exams every time he took them in order to gain information he otherwise would not have attained, or otherwise would have been forced to risk his life to attain through other means as espionage was his true goal. Thanks to the exams, he knew the layouts of each of the hidden villages of the five Elemental Nations, and a great deal of information on the capabilities of hundreds of Genin and dozens of Chunin. The exams themselves however, were a pain in the ass despite it being completely worth it in the end.

In Otogakure, he was a Tokubetsu Jounin, and had gotten the rank the old fashioned way, through the betrayal of his village. His true level of knowledge in the medical field was second only to perhaps Orochimaru or Tsunade, and in Oto, he got to show it off. There, he had assisted Orochimaru on a number of experimental procedures, and performed a few experiments himself. As a scientist, his hands itched to study a number of the people in the room, especially the two Jinchuriki and Uchiha Sasuke who had apparently finally awakened his sharingan.

Realizing that he'd been gazing at the blond menace while he'd been lost in his musings on the Exams, he turned his gaze away from Naruto, and flicked it around the room in a logical search pattern. There. He'd found the plant. Time to start "cheating"...

_On the day I finally get Naruto onto my exam table, I'm going to "forget" the anesthetic_. he thought as he started copying off the Chunin who had been planted in the crowd.

**Edited 11-28-12.**


	19. Chunin Exams: Into the Forest

Naruto knew that he had a loud mouth at times, alot of the time in fact, especially in situations when he was nervous and his life didn't depend on his being quiet. Tetsuo-sensei had worked with him on it for two years, and had only been marginally successful in his efforts as he no-longer ran around the village screaming for attention at the top of his lungs. When he was on missions, or when he was in what Konohamaru had dubbed "That mood", he was relatively quiet. Other times however...

His noisiness in manner and volume was a form of stress relief, as well as an attention seeking behavior. The Academy got to experience this in the form of a highly disruptive prankster. His former team had got to experience it in the form of a rather rowdy and rambunctious boy who practically bounced off the walls. His current team usually got to experience his loud nature in the form of some rather vicious arguments that were usually between him and Sasuke. Everyone who took the Chunin Exams that day got a little taste of it as well, when he decided to be confrontational, and refuse to back down despite the proctor's best efforts to get him and everyone else in the room to do so.

He'd been under far more stress than he was willing to admit that day despite the fact that he'd been telling himself that the second part of the Exams would be a snap due to home-ground advantage, because he knew that they wouldn't be even with the home-ground advantage. No matter how many times he told himself that everything would be fine, he failed to convince himself, especially after Kabuto had just had to go and remind him exactly why he'd been lying to himself, and ruin what little good mood he had upon arriving for the test, adding extra pressure to what was already a tense situation.

When the tenth question came around, much to his shame and embarrassment, he had found himself seriously considering joining those who were opting out, and running. His teammates didn't have nearly the experience he did, and there were a large number of people here with far more experience than him, and just as many with more experience than him and his less experienced teammates who were running from the question as well. Considering how inexperienced they were, his teammates wouldn't stand a chance on their own during the Second Phase, and there was a distinct possibility that he wouldn't be able to protect them the way he hadn't been able to protect his former teammates and his comrades the last time he took the test even with an extra year and a half as a ninja under his belt.

Instead of raising his hand as he'd seriously considered doing however, he had found himself rising to meet the challenge that the proctor at the front of the room had presented. He'd always hated it when people had told him he'd fail at something without ever giving him a chance to prove himself, and that Ibiki jerk had been strongly hinting that that was the case.

"Bring it on old man!" he yelled when he got the proctor's attention. "I won't back down, and even if I fail, I'll find a way to become a Chunin, even if I have to wait three decades for a field promotion!"

Instead of smacking him down for his audacity as he expected would happen, the man looked around the room for a minute and smiled before informing everyone who had remained at the time of his rather ill thought out outburst that they had passed the the first portion of the Exams. Apparently, the tenth question had been a "First phase surprise". He should have known that the proctor was springing a "First phase surprise" on them. That had happened the last time he'd taken the Exams as well. During the Exams in Kiri, the proctor had told them that they would have the choice of taking the old Academy Graduation Test or not, and that those who chose not to take the "Graduation test" would be sent home. If he'd been told beforehand exactly what Kiri's old graduation test had been, he probably would have been one of the ones racing out of the room as fast as his legs could carry him. The fact that his teammates had stayed had made him wonder for a while, until he realized that they had quite likely been as ignorant of the particulars of that test as he had.

He was rather violently jarred from his musings on the nature of the last "First Phase Surprise" that had been sprung on him during the Winter Exams in Kiri when one Mitarashi Anko, Proctor for the second phase of the exams, made a dramatic entrance that would have normally scored a 7, but got an 8 for the sheer shock that it had caused when she had gone sailing in through a closed window while the proctor for the first phase was giving a dramatic speech on exactly why they had passed his portion of the Exams that had included the display of a number of rather gruesome looking scars. Anko was the wild sort of person that looked like she'd be alot of fun to hang out with. Too bad she was so old that it would look weird if they did.

Tomorrow morning, they would be taking the second test, and he would pass this one with his team intact, or he would die trying.

* * *

As Ibiki gathered all of the written tests, one in particular caught his eye. It had been the one belonging to the child who had challenged him, and inspired such a large number of teams to continue in the process. The boy had only answered four of the questions on the test, making him one shy of the number that would have gotten him disqualified.

"Sneaky little bastard." Ibiki muttered, chuckling as he gathered the rest of the tests.

He really should have thought this test through better. With the way it had been set up, a couple of brainiacs and a few crafty little bastards like the Uzumaki had slipped through.

* * *

Near the fence to the Forest of Death, Konohamaru grinned as the boss pretended to run away from his three person "rock" which contained himself and two of his classmates, Udon and Moegi. He'd jumped at the chance to interview the candidates in the Chunin Exams for the Academy newspaper so he'd be able to wish Naruto luck before the second phase of the exams. He would not have been allowed in the area otherwise since it was restricted to all but the Proctors, the Chunin Hopefuls, and the Academy Newsletter.

His and his friend's dramatic entry had caused a great deal of laughter, especially when they had ended up choking on the colored smoke they had used because they had put a little too much gunpowder in the mix. The Proctor - an awesome looking lady with dark purple hair and skimpy clothes - looked about ready to yell at them, until they had informed her that they belonged there, because they had been ordered to do an article for the Academy paper. After the introductions had been gotten out of the way, she had given them ten minutes to do their business and get gone.

When he saw Naruto when he had arrived with his friends, his boss looked to be in "That mood", but a few minutes of fun had picked his mood up considerably by the time their "interview" had finished, and they were forced to leave. Naruto had even introduced them to someone named Kabuto who apparently knew alot about how the Exams went in other countries, and had a bunch of cool ninja info cards to show them, and to give them a foreign perspective on the Exams, Naruto had introduced them to a team from Suna. The two boys were rather scary, but the girl named Temari was rather nice. Moegi thought she was cool, and Udon looked as if he had a crush on her.

All too soon however, it was time to leave, and when they did so, Naruto was smiling and didn't look as nervous as he had when they arrived.

Mission Accomplished.

* * *

"Sorry about ruining your fun yesterday." Naruto said to Kabuto as they moved back towards the main group after seeing Konohamaru and his friends off.

"It's okay." Kabuto replied. "Thanks for letting me do the interview with the Academy students."

"You're welcome." he replied as Kabuto moved towards his team "They seemed even more impressed than my team did when you showed us your cards on the way to Kiri."

As he made his way back to his own team, he couldn't help but stop and stare at the other Chunin Hopefuls that were clustered near the fence that surrounded Training Ground 44. He honestly didn't know why so many of the teams had coordinated their outfits like Kabuto's team had. As far as he was concerned, doing something like that was a waste of both time and money. He couldn't have gotten his team to coordinate outfits even if he wanted to anyway. While Sasuke had gotten some shirts with the Uchiha Fan discreetly stitched into the collar for situations in which he could go into battle, the boy would not budge on color, and only wore either black or blue. Sakura wouldn't budge on the color red either, just like the way he hadn't budged on the color orange, but was willing to wear more subdued shades if the situation called for it.

When they made Chunin though, all that would quite likely go out the window, as almost all Chunin wore the basic shinobi uniform, and only really started varying their attire again when they made Tokubetsu Jounin or Jounin. There were always a few holdouts or exceptions though, and Sakura would probably be one of them.

All too soon it was time to enter the forest, the release forms were signed, the scrolls were handed out, and the wait was over. After another brief wait at a gate, they were inside the one forest near Konoha that he had not yet explored as a guy in a mask had kept him out of it the one time he'd tried when he was little, which mostly negated the home-ground advantage he'd been counting on. During the first few minutes in the woods, he caught some moron sniffing around the team and sent the idiot packing with his tail between his legs.

Things went well for the next few hours after that, right up until everything went to hell. A wind that was most likely the result of a jutsu split the group, and he ended up being forced to kill a goddamn snake that had to be the size of his apartment building in order to get back to his teammates who had been left like sitting ducks. When he reached his teammates, it was only to find some bitch holding Sasuke and Sakura under the worst Killing Intent he'd ever felt. Even though he was a little ways away from where his teammates stood paralyzed, he could barely move himself.

Fortunately, Sasuke managed to make his escape with Sakura before the two could be killed. Had the Uchiha left Sakura behind, he would have murdered the boy, teammate or no teammate, Sharingan or no Sharingan. One of the first rules he'd learned was that you don't leave a teammate behind. As Sasuke and Sakura fled from the bitch who'd attacked them, he followed them, doing his best to keep ahead of another building sized snake that was hot on his tail. He and Sasuke both turned and killed the snake after Sakura had been gotten to safety only to have the bitch who had apparently been controlling the creature burst out of it in a demented parody of a stripper hopping out of a cake, like the one Tetsuo-sensei got in trouble for when someone hired her for his birthday party as a joke.

The bitch whose hitai-ate said she was from Grass then shot up the tree the team was in, looking very much like the animal whose insides she had burst forth from in a way that was reminiscent of a horror movie he and his teammates had watched that had left him hiding under his bed for an entire night. They just barely managed to dodge this new attack and when they did, Sasuke offered up their scroll in a somewhat cowardly, but sensible move considering the difference in power between their team and the Grass Kunoichi. The woman had been rather easily handing them their asses, and once she quit playing around, there was a good chance that they would die. While he lamented the lost chance to continue and possibly pass the Exams this time around so he didn't start looking like the six time loser Kabuto who was only now taking them as a formality rather than out of any hope of promotion, it was better that they got out of there with their lives and limbs intact. They could always try again in January.

The bitch hadn't wanted the scroll however. That had been made apparent when she destroyed it before their eyes and threw Sasuke into a nearby tree, knocking him out.

"It seems that the Sharingan wasn't nearly as powerful as I was led to believe." the bitch said to Sasuke who was just regaining consciousness after that rather painful whack to the head. "Either that, or you are a particularly worthless specimen. Since you showed the smallest amount of promise earlier however, I'll give you one more chance to redeem yourself later, and if you don't do so, you'll die along with the rest of your pathetic village when the time comes."

"Until then Sasuke-kun." the bitch said before she vanished.

"Who the hell was that?" Sasuke groaned.

"I have no effing idea, but thanks to your boneheaded maneuver, we now need two scrolls instead of one." he replied.

It figured something would go wrong, it was almost as if he were cursed or something. If they failed because of this, he was going to be taking it out of Sasuke's hide later. It had been Sasuke who that bitch who had destroyed their scroll had been after after all.

* * *

In the middle of the forest, Anko stood on a tree branch sore and shaking, as the seal on her neck burned. This was supposed to be a nice relaxing job, a break between more strenuous missions. Instead, she'd run into Orochimaru who had been trolling the forest for recruits, or more likely, considering what usually happened to the people he got his hands on, even his own students, test subjects for his experiments. Based on what the man had told her before he wandered off, he already had an unfortunate candidate in mind. She pitied the poor child, and hoped that he or she could manage to escape Orochimaru's clutches before something irreversible happened, such as the seal she had been given.

She couldn't stop the Chunin Exams however, because they were all that were keeping Orochimaru entertained at the moment, and therefore keeping him from going on a killing spree and taking out anyone and everyone he came across. The Genin in the forest were a small sacrifice when held up against the entire population of Konoha.

* * *

After two days of searching following the debacle with the bitch from Grass, Naruto found the perfect team to steal scrolls from. They had gotten both of their scrolls in the middle of the night, and instead of heading straight to the tower like they should have done, the idiots had settled down for a nap. Since they weren't from Konoha, he didn't feel the least bit of guilt over taking their scrolls. Fortunately for him and his team, Satoshi had taught him a thing or two about making off with things that didn't belong to him, and these guys weren't Jounin, not by a long shot. The guy on watch had been half asleep, and neither of his teammates had woken up when he wandered through their camp taking the scrolls and setting a couple of traps to slow them down when they became aware that he'd done so and attempted pursuit. Idiots.

After that, it was a straight shot to the tower, during which he took point in case of traps. There had been a great many blocking their way, but he had been able to navigate past them, going around the ones he couldn't disable.

Shortly after dawn on the third day of the Second Phase of the Summer Chunin Exam, Team 7 arrived at the tower.

**Edited 11-28-12**


	20. Chunin Exams: Preliminaries

As he stood before the teams of Genin who had passed the Second Phase of the Exams, the Hokage shoved down his feelings of concern. Orochimaru had managed to infiltrate the Exams, and they were forced to go on as if nothing had happened in order to keep Orochimaru from going on a rampage, and keep people from panicking until he actually did so as the destruction they caused in their panic could be equal to or greater than any destruction Orochimaru may cause. While he personally wanted to stop what was happening, he knew that it would have to continue as if nothing were amiss.

He gained a small measure of amusement from watching the shocked expressions of the Genin who stood below him as he explained the true meaning and history of the Exams in which they had decided to participate. Long ago, this would simply have been taken in stride. Now however, after so many years of peace, he was in front of a generation that had never experienced the horrors of war, and therefore were shocked by the mere idea of it.

When had he gotten so old?

* * *

Standing below the Hokage and beside her teammates, Sakura felt her heart hammering in her chest as a set of unexpected preliminaries were being announced. Out of the thirteen potentially passing teams, seven had made it here intact. Two others had made it here not so intact, and had been disqualified. One scroll had been destroyed by the woman who had also swallowed her own scroll who had attacked her team on the first day. That meant that four scrolls and therefore two teams were still out there unaccounted for and unable to pass because they'd missed the deadline.

Because of the unusually high number of passing teams, a set of preliminary matches were going to be held immediately in order to further whittle down the number of candidates before the Third Phase of the Exams, which would be taking place in front of an audience of important dignitaries at some point in the near future. The proctor for this preliminary bout was asking if anyone wished to quit here and now, especially since there was an odd number of candidates. The answer as far as she was concerned was Hell No! She hadn't gone this far and risked this much to back down now.

While she stood firm knowing that she was close to her goal of becoming a medic and whatever may follow it, the older boy named Kabuto that she had met during the First Phase quit at that point, making the group an even twenty. That decision to quit had made it his failure record for the Chunin Exams 7 for 7. Personally, she didn't understand why someone would go so far, and drop out when they were so close to their goal. Why even bother to enter in the first place if you were going to do something like that?

Soon, attention was diverted from Kabuto's recent failure and towards the electronic board that would announce who was fighting who that had been revealed. Moments later, the first names appeared. Sasuke was first off the bat, and he would be facing the Sound Genin who had attacked Kabuto before the first test.

* * *

Orochimaru watched in anticipation as the Uchiha boy made his way down into the indoor arena where he would be fighting one of his minions. Despite the fact that the boy had given such a disappointing showing in the forest, he had decided to stay and watch the preliminaries. He was giving his potential vessel one more chance to prove his strength. If the boy failed here and therefore failed to reach the Arena next month, he would be as worthless as the rest of Konoha and would deserve to die in the invasion. He would not run the chance of severely weakening himself by pouring himself into a fragile vessel.

There was still a question of whether or not this one was truly as weak as he had appeared however. He wasn't entirely certain if it had been cowardice or pragmatism that had led the Uchiha to hand over his scroll five days ago when he had gone against him in the forest. Today, he would be able to tell which it had been. While handing the scroll over was a cowardly act on the surface, it was also an act of pointless stupidity to throw one's life away fighting an opponent they couldn't defeat for little to no gain, especially when what you desired could come to you more easily if you were prepared to wait.

If Uchiha Sasuke failed the preliminaries, he would prove his utter worthlessness and would die before he left the building. If he succeeded, he would watch the boy during the third phase of the exams and see how he compared to the strongest of his generation, especially the Jinchuriki. If Sasuke proved himself as strong as he thought him to be, he would take the boy then and there. If he didn't prove his strength to be superior however, the "Last" Uchiha would die, and good riddance. He'd never cared for the Uchiha anyways. They were overly proud and arrogant, content to rest on the laurels of bygone ancestors, and a rather treasonous lot to boot. The only thing he found even potentially useful about them were their eyes which he had a cloned stockpile of that he hadn't bothered using because he'd have to cover an implanted eye when not in use to prevent it from draining his Chakra the way the Kakashi boy did.

There were several other Kekkei Genkai he could take if the Uchiha proved to be an utter failure, but the Uchiha's eyes were the one that would put him much closer to his goal of learning every Jutsu ever created. The eyes would be useless to him however if they were housed in a weak body, as that would weaken him as well. With the Chakra drain involved when using Sharingan eyes that weren't one's own, he would much prefer taking the Uchiha boy as a vessel than taking his eyes from his corpse or using the ones he'd stockpiled when making Shimura Danzo's special arm, but he would implant them if left with no other alternatives.

Instead of drawing one of the strongest available amongst the group of candidates that were in the Preliminaries, someone who would bring out the Uchiha boy's true strength so he wouldn't have to wait another month to see it, Sasuke's opponent had turned out to be one of his throwaway pawns that he had planned to use to test Sasuke's ability to handle the seal he had planned on placing on the boy, until the Uchiha child had proven to be somewhat of a disappointment. Rather than being a foil to test a newly acquired curse seal against, the minion would now be a secondary test of the power of the Uchiha child as well as his prized Sharingan.

As he'd more than half expected he would, Sasuke had proven himself far more able with a foe he believed he had a chance of defeating, proving that his handing over his scroll several days before had been more an act of pragmatism than cowardice. There had been more than four days left before the deadline, and a number of scrolls floating around where the boy could get his hands on them after all. Why keep something that could cost you your life when you could get something just like it elsewhere and from someone much weaker than the opponent you were facing after all?

After a rather short fight in which Sasuke proved himself to be superior to his opponent in every way, Sasuke eventually finished Dosu off with a move that his father had been rather famous for during the days when he'd served on the field rather than as the Chief or Police. As he watched the trapped Dosu burn, he found himself eagerly anticipating Sasuke's next test, the one that would prove whether or not the boy truly was worthy of his time and attention.

* * *

All too soon for the participants in that match, the second set of names were called. Abumi Zaku made his way down to the arena floor a second after Aburame Shino. When the time for the battle came, he wasted no time in blasting the boy in the trenchcoat with his Zankuha. The boy evaded his attacks with relative ease however, and called upon an army of bugs. Growing frustrated with his lack of success, he then tried to blast both the boy and the bugs only to have his arms ripped apart from the inside.

He lay on the ground in unbearable agony knowing that he'd failed both Lord Orochimaru and himself. His technique had backfired on him, ripping his arms open to relieve the pressure because his opponent had crammed the openings in his palms full of bugs. Once again he had been overconfident and tried to fly too high, and once again he had failed. He had failed himself, and Lord Orochimaru who had taken him off the streets and had made him strong so he would never again have to stoop so low as to risk his life in order to steal a crust of bread in order to survive.

* * *

After his name was called, Inuzuka Kiba felt somewhat uncertain as he made his way to the arena floor. While he had always been able to defeat Naruto rather easily back at the Academy, that had been over two and a half years ago and Naruto had changed a great deal since then. The loud-mouthed prankster who couldn't be serious if he tried that he knew and skipped classes with long ago looked very serious at the moment. Instead of bouncing with excitement or trembling with fear like he would have been doing when they were in the Academy together, he was almost completely still as they stood in front of the proctor and waited for their fight to start.

He opened the fight with one of his better moves, a move that would have knocked the old Naruto out for days, in order to test the boy. Instead of standing there and taking the blow as he would have done back then, Naruto managed to dodge. At the very least, the Uzumaki's speed had improved to some degree since the Academy.

Deciding to try a different tack, he threw a couple of smoke bombs at Naruto in order to cover his attacks. Then, he and Akamaru launched themselves into the fight. Despite the disorienting smoke, they soon found themselves launched out of it again, heading in different directions with an explosive tag attached to each of them. Fortunately, the boy had placed a tag with a slightly longer timer on Akamaru, allowing him to save the dog from serious injuries; which had apparently been his plan all along, since Naruto went on the offensive while he was distracted with rescuing Akamaru.

Before he knew it, he was on the ground and in pain, and Akamaru was on the ground on the other side of the arena. In a ratehr desperate move, he pulled out a pair of food pills. If he wanted any chance of passing, there was nothing left to do but pull out his best attack. And to think, he was going to have to use the Gatsuga against the boy who had been touted as the absolute last of the class for a few years before he somehow managed to graduate the Academy two years early, the boy he used to be able to easily pound into the dirt whenever he wanted to.

After taking one of the pills, he tossed the other to Akamaru but, Naruto caught it before it could reach the dog, and crushed it underfoot. Throwing another to replace the one that had been destroyed would be pointless, since Naruto would just catch and destroy that one as well. With the way things were going, he would have to hope Akamaru was able to distract Naruto while he did the Tsuga instead.

Preparing for his solo attack, he threw another two smoke bombs to disorient his opponent, and Akamaru launched himself into the smoke cloud. After Akamaru jumped in to pin his opponent, he flew towards the boy, spinning at an insane rate, while Akamaru attacked from the other side. The attack failed however because Naruto had managed to shake Akamaru off and dodge his attack and counter it, even with the smoke cloud disorienting him. Still desperate to win or at the very least land a single blow, he flew at Naruto once more, and the result was the same.

Eventually, after giving his best, and after several failed attacks, he was forced to admit defeat when Naruto finally knocked him down one more time than he could rise. Naruto definitely wasn't the omega of the pack he remembered, but an alpha in his own right.

* * *

After Kiba had forfeited, Sakura's heart leapt into her throat as the next two names came up on the board. She would be fighting Ino next. Ino who had once been her friend, Ino who was her rival for Sasuke's affections, Ino whom she had been trailing after practically all her life, Ino who was a beautiful Cosmos flower while she was still a bud was her opponent, and she would have to fight her if she wanted to pass the Exams so she could be free to become a medic.

Back when they were in the Academy together, Ino had defeated her in just about everything but academics. Ino had trounced her during their Taijutsu spars, and outperformed her in the womanly arts. Ino had beat her then, and would quite likely beat her now. Even though she was afraid to face her, she would have to since the other girl was standing in the way of her future. She would have to defeat Ino who had always been better than her in order to move forward.

Swallowing down her nervousness, she made her way to the arena floor. She would have to get past her fear and give it her all and pray that it was enough.

* * *

As Ino was being led away from the arena, the girl found herself wondering if she knew Sakura anymore, as her former friend had changed a great deal in the months since she had last seen her. Someone had apparently replaced the somewhat insecure girl she had known with a competent Kunoichi while she hadn't been looking. The girl whom she had expected to fall to her might had instead risen to the challenge, and taken the advantage presented to her when she had rather stupidly pulled one of her punches believing Sakura to still be as weak as she used to be. Thanks to that pulled punch, she had been steadily driven into a corner by the girl's furious onslaught which had followed, until she had eventually fallen.

After years of winning in just about every arena other than love, she had finally lost to Sakura.

* * *

Kakashi proudly greeted Sakura after she'd returned from her fight with the Yamanaka girl. Despite their "differences", his team had performed admirably so far. They had managed to work together long enough to make their way through the forest to the tower, and all three of them had passed the preliminary matches, advancing to the next round. He was slightly worried about Sasuke though. The boy obviously had some anger issues. Using a jutsu like the Ryuuka no Jutsu in a preliminary bout had been overkill, especially since he already had his opponent on the ropes and pretty much defeated when he used it, making its use highly unnecessary.

Naruto had of course performed admirably as always, just as his father would have done. The boy had used excellent strategies to take out the Inuzuka's greatest advantages and carry the day. He would not have expected any less of Minato-sensei's son.

In her recent battle, Sakura had somehow managed to surprise him as well. The girl had grown greatly over the last couple of months. The student he had thought the weakest and least likely to succeed had managed to defeat the daughter of the head of the Yamanaka family. Not only had she managed to defeat the girl, she had defeated her soundly. He probably wasn't going to forget that rather vicious bit of hair pulling she had engaged in in order to win anytime soon though. Fortunately for Sakura, Naruto had convinced her to pin her hair up and cover it for the Exams.

Only four bouts into the preliminaries, and he could already brag that his entire team had passed into the finals. Not bad. It would be even better if Gai's team didn't pass though. He'd be able to hold it over the man's head for years if that happened.

**Edited 11-28-12**


	21. Chunin Exams: Preliminaries II

As soon as Sakura and Ino cleared out of the arena, the names for the fifth fight in the preliminaries were called and Kankuro and Akado Yoroi made their way down to the arena. Kankuro had - rather cleverly in his opinion - switched himself out with Karasu when everyone had been paying attention to the bitch-fight between the two Leaf Kunoichi that had been passed off as a preliminary bout, and therefore was being carried into the arena rather than walking. Soon, Yoroi and Karasu were standing in front of the proctor who was refereeing the preliminaries waiting for their fight to start.

The moment the signal was given, both Karasu and Yoroi burst into motion. Yoroi grabbed the only bit on Karasu that would have been exposed skin on Kankuro, his face. Despite his facial covering that masked all expression, the man somehow managed to look completely stunned when absolutely nothing happened after he'd grabbed "Kankuro's" face. Whatever the man had planned to do had apparently required physical contact with the real Kankuro in order for him to pull it off.

Following Yoroi's failure, Karasu went on the offensive, and beat Yoroi to a pulp at Kankuro's direction. Kankuro found the fight to be easy, and was amused by the fact that he'd never once been forced to show himself throughout the entire bout. Apparently his opponent had been a one trick pony, and he'd somehow neutralized that trick without even trying. As soon as the proctor announced his victory, he swapped places with Karasu, and made his way back to Baki-sensei and his siblings. There was no reason to remain wrapped in those stifling bandages any longer than necessary.

* * *

Practically the instant Kankuro returned to his teammates, the names for the sixth bout were announced. Temari would be fighting someone named Tenten. As she made her way down to the arena and proctor who would start the match, Temari sized her opponent up. The girl looked more serious than her other Konoha counterparts, and obviously hadn't spent as much time on her hair and clothing as that ridiculous pair who had been clawing at each-other and trying to pull the other's hair had done. Good, this might actually be a real match, rather than a bitchfight like the one that had taken place between the two other Leaf kunoichi.

In the opening moves of their fight, her opponent showed herself to be something of a budding weapons specialist when she went on the offensive. It was such a pity that she had to come up against a Wind mistress considering. Unlike just about every other girl in Konoha that she'd encountered during her stay, the girl actually seemed to take her position as a Kunoichi seriously. She would rather have seen her in the final phase of the Exams than that pink haired harridan who spent a good minute pulling that blonde's hair.

When the girl realized that her initial moves had failed and that she would need to step up her game, she released three storage scrolls worth of weapons, and did something with ninja wire that undoubtedly would have caught Kankuro's interest as a puppet master before the bout was over, but eventually the fight ended in her favor as she blew the last of the weapons away and caught the girl in a Kamaitachi no Jutsu which was rather aptly named after the sickle weasel which floated through the winds slicing anyone it encountered with its razor sharp claws according to legend.

After catching the wounded girl on her fan, she flicked her aside and one of the boys on her team jumped down and caught her before she hit the ground. After the boy had caught his teammate, she talked a bit of trash with the boy she could be battling in a month, and left the arena. While she had a little more respect for her opponent than she did the two other Kunoichi she had seen battle, she still found the Leaf Kunoichi to be weak compared to her. She had hoped for a greater challenge than the one she had gotten only to have those hopes dashed.

Considering the apparent strength of the Leaf's forces, when it came time for the Invasion, Konoha was going to be toast.

* * *

As soon as TenTen's weapons were all cleared from the Arena floor, the names for the seventh bout were selected and announced. Lee wasn't sure if he should be happy or disappointed that he had been selected to fight Akimichi Chouji. While the Akimichi were powerhouses when it came to Taijutsu, the heavy boy was both slower and less experienced than him, thus the disappointment. The potential joy over the selection of his opponent came from the fact that he would have a much better chance of advancing to the finals and facing a truly strong opponent during the Third Phase of the Exams in front of all of the dignitaries that the Hokage had mentioned proving that a Genius of Hard Work could succeed.

The battle that came next was short, and almost brutally one-sided, as even with the weights holding him back he moved far too quickly for Chouji to counter. Chouji's punches and kicks were undoubtedly powerful as was his Human Bullet Tank technique, but he had been able to rather easily avoid them and kicking Chouji around like he were a soccer ball had not been nearly as fun as it had apparently looked to his audience who had cheered when Chouji had hit the far wall of the arena.

He had been hoping for a most Youthful battle in which both parties gave their all but, it looked like he would have to wait until the Third Phase for that to happen.

* * *

As soon as Lee and the rather battered Chouji were cleared from the arena floor, the names for the eighth bout were announced. They were Hyuuga Hinata and Hyuuga Neji. Hinata, who had been over the moon about the fact that Naruto was actually speaking with her, even if it was only about the properties of the homemade medicinal ointment that she had given him had been forcefully slammed down to Earth by the name of her opponent. That couldn't possibly have been a random selection. Someone had to have bribed whoever it was that programmed the boards, either that, or a Hyuuga had programmed the board at some point when it became apparent that Preliminaries would be necessary.

She understood why it had been done. Compared to Neji and her younger sister, she was weak. If she somehow made it to the final part of the exams and failed in front of the assembled dignitaries, her family would be seen as weak. By having her fight Neji and be eliminated now, it was guaranteed that a Hyuuga would make it to the final phase, and not shame the family when they did so.

She felt sadness and anger at this. She had worked so hard to be strong, and had hoped to prove to herself and everyone around her that she was so during the Chunin Exams. She had always wanted to be like Naruto who always picked himself back up off the ground and climbed ever higher after every time he did so. Every time she faced an obstacle however, she found herself stopping and backing away. This time didn't appear to be an exception, as while Neji kept telling her that she was a failure and always would be a failure she found herself drawing in on herself, trying to protect herself from his words.

Suddenly, as she was about to give up, a voice that never failed to cause her heart to skip a beat called out "C'mon Hinata, don't give up now, I know for a fact that you're much better than this!". Naruto believed in her! Naruto believed in her! She couldn't give up now, she had to prove to both herself and everyone else that she was as strong as Naruto believed her to be.

Emboldened by the words of the boy she admired, she moved to strike. Neji provided no openings, no matter what she did however. Eventually, after what seemed like forever, her eyes found one. She scored a hit! She scored a hit against Neji! She could do this!

She couldn't do this. Neji proved too strong, and too fast. He closed all of the tenketsu on her arms, disabling her Juken strikes. All she could do now was try to block him. She couldn't block him forever, and the pain in her chest from one of his earlier strikes grew to be too much. She collapsed, and nearly lost consciousness. As the proctor announced her defeat, and the Jounin moved in to save her from Neji's next attack, she struggled to rise. She wouldn't stay down. She wouldn't stay down. She would get up like Naruto. She stood, and then she fell...

* * *

Naruto clutched the railing in shock. If he had known that this would happen, he would not have called out any encouragement despite the fact that He'd promised Hinata that he'd be rooting for her as she'd left for the arena floor. He had seen Hinata faltering, and decided then would be a good time to cheer her up a bit, especially since he now considered her to be something of a friend now that he'd actually talked to her. After he'd loudly cheered her on, Hinata had fought instead of forfeiting like she had looked like she had been about to do. She had fought bravely, and now, because she had fought, she could die.

Neji however had not needed to be so brutal. He had not needed to put Hinata down so much, and he had not needed to attack her so viciously especially considering the fact that Hinata was both family and a comrade to the Hyuuga boy.

Hinata was his friend, and as soon as he got a chance to do so, he was going to show Neji exactly what he did to people who harmed his friends. If Hinata's teammates didn't take him out back and show him what they did to people who hurt their teammate first that is. As her teammates, the Inuzuka and the Aburame had first dibs on any actions that might be taken against the Hyuuga bastard for what he'd done to Hinata.

* * *

As she was carried off, Neji watched his cousin who persisted in calling him "big brother" despite the fact that he had done everything to make it clear that he disliked her go. She had proven herself a loser as Fate had decreed her to be, but...

As he looked back on the fight, he remembered the moment that her eyes had changed, and how there had been steel in her spine if only for a little while. In that moment, she had seemed strong and fierce, and traces of that fierceness had remained in the moments afterward when she refused to quit even though it was obvious from the beginning that she had lost, and in the moment she rose despite the fact that she should have stayed down.

She had lost as Fate decreed she would however. People don't change. Once a loser, always a loser. There were no exceptions.

* * *

As soon as Neji walked away confident in his understanding of how the world worked, the ninth match was called, and it was Nara Shikamaru and Tsuchi Kin who would be fighting in this bout. Shikamaru wouldn't have bothered, except that it would be more troublesome for him if he backed out now since he had failed to back out when he'd been given the chance to do so. If he just stayed up here now, he'd be hearing about it from his peers, his teammates, his mother, and Asuma-sensei for years. Whether he won or lost, it would be better to just get it over and done with now so he wouldn't have to hear anything about it from anyone.

Kin proved to be an interesting if somewhat easy to read opponent. After determining the nature of her sound based Genjutsu attack, he swiftly caught her in his Kagemane and made her knock herself out by hitting her head against a nearby wall while dodging a flying shuriken.

Now that that was over and done with, he couldn't wait for the tenth battle to take place so he could get the hell out of here and maybe catch some cloud watching time before the team went out for Chouji's consolation dinner.

* * *

After the unconscious Kin had been cleared away, the tenth match was called, and it was Gaara against Tsurugi Misumi. As Misumi made his way down to the arena, he wondered exactly how hard a time he would have of it. Kabuto had informed him of Gaara's status as the Jinchuriki of the One-tailed Tanuki Shukaku. This meant that in regards to power, his opponent was stronger than the average Jounin, and he would have to end this quickly.

Trying to get the fight over with as fast as possible, he moved to the boy the instant the start of the fight was called, and dislocated his limbs so the boy couldn't just throw him off when he wrapped himself around him as he did so. When he grabbed the boy in order to squeeze him to death or unconsciousness at the very least, it had probably looked like a weird sort of hug to everyone who had been watching, since he'd gone for the front as the boy's back was covered by a giant gourd. As he tried to crush the boy, he could feel sand move under his arms.

Suddenly, he felt himself flying away from the boy, his limbs ripping off and going in different directions as sand flew into his face, blinding him.

There was more pain than he'd ever felt in his entire life, and everything went black...

* * *

After the tenth bout had ended and those who passed had lined up before him, Gekko Hayate looked over the group of Genin who had made it to the Third Phase of the Exams. They were a strong bunch, and would most likely go far. Soon, the Hokage finished his speech to the young shinobi that were arrayed before him, and he went along the line with the box that contained the numbered slips of paper that would determine in which order the Genin would fight. Once he reached the end and the last number had been taken, the candidates called out their numbers.

"One." Hyuuga Neji called.

"Five." Aburame Shino called.

"Three." Rock Lee called.

"Four." The Suna Genin Kankuro called.

"Two" Uzumaki Naruto called.

"Seven." The Suna Genin Temari called.

"Six." Nara Shikamaru called.

"Nine." Uchiha Sasuke called.

"Ten." The Suna Genin Gaara called.

"Eight." Haruno Sakura called.

"The matches for the Third Phase of the Summer Chunin Exams will be: Hyuuga Neji vs. Uzumaki Naruto, Rock Lee vs. Kankuro, Aburame Shino vs. Nara Shikamaru, Temari vs. Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Sasuke vs. Gaara." he announced after the last Genin had called out her number.

* * *

After the matches had been called, the Preliminaries had ended and everyone including Kakashi had gone home. As he made his way into his apartment and tossed his vest onto a chair that was completely covered in dog hair Kakashi sighed in relief that that ordeal was over. A moment later, he whirled and pulled out a kunai as he made his way to his miniscule kitchen to attack the person who was sitting at his dining table without his leave. He then lowered the kunai when he saw exactly who it was that was sitting at his table leafing through one of his few non Icha Icha books and chowing down on the leftovers he'd planned on having for dinner.

"Hello Jiraiya." he said. "Long time no see."

**Edited 11-28-12**


	22. Chunin Exams: Trainers and Students

After greeting his sensei's sensei, Kakashi pulled a beer out of his fridge and popped it open wondering what the hell Jiraiya was doing in his kitchen after staying away from Konoha and everyone in it for more than a decade. After several moments of thought, it finally hit him.

"You're taking Naruto aren't you?" he asked, holding the open beer two inches away from his masked face, unheeding of the fact that it had begun to spill.

"I had planned on it, yes." Jiraiya replied, and in that moment, he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to murder his sensei's sensei.

Under Konoha law, he could get away with it too, since the man had invaded his apartment uninvited.

"You do realize that I don't plan on handing him over." he told the man who had come into his home, eaten his dinner, and told him that he planned on taking Minato-sensei's son from him coldly.

He knew that Jiraiya had the prior claim since he was the boy's godfather, appointed to the position by Minato-sensei and all. He even knew why the man had not fulfilled his responsibilities towards the boy until now, as it was the same reason he had hung back until Shimura had given him a legitimate reason to come forward. Even with that knowledge, the thought of the man taking Naruto away from him before he had a chance to connect with the boy enraged him.

"You do realize that you don't have a choice, much like that one guy what's his name didn't have a choice when you took Naruto from him." Jiraiya replied equally coolly, the look in his eyes saying that if he tried to force the issue, he would smack him down hard.

"Naruto was meant to be..." he started.

Naruto was meant to be his student. He had known that since the day he had first felt the boy kick while Kushina-san was pregnant with him. He'd almost forgotten it in the intervening years, but he had remembered when Shimura had taken the boy for himself.

"With you, yes I know." Jiraiya said. "You clearly illustrated that when you took him without ever once consulting the boy about his feelings on the matter."

"He'll come around eventually." he replied.

Naruto would come around eventually, even if he had to wait a long while. Naruto was his to train, his to mold as Minato-sensei had once done with him. He'd promised Minato-sensei well before Naruto was even born.

"Would you have "come around" if someone had snatched you from little Minato and demanded you call them "Sensei"?". Jiraiya asked, pushing his half-finished meal aside and looking at him seriously.

"That is hardly the..." he started before Jiraiya cut him off again.

"It is the same. You took him away from a teacher he knew and loved just like family, and tried to take the man's role even though Naruto hadn't wanted you to." Jiraiya replied. "I may have been far away, but I've always had eyes and ears on the boy."

"You plan on doing the same thing." he pointed out, as Jiraiya had already admitted to as much earlier.

"Not exactly." Jiraiya replied. "While I do plan on springing a little surprise on the boy, I'm going to make it clear that I know that his sensei is his sensei, and that his godfather can teach him a few tricks that his sensei doesn't know. If he tries to shove me off and tell me to go to hell, I'll back off him a bit and give him a little time and space. If you keep trying to squeeze him tighter, he's just going to struggle that much harder to escape."

He scowled at this behind his mask. Jiraiya always knew how to make him feel like a kid, and he felt very much like one later, after he'd chucked his half full beer at the man and yelled at him to get out. It figured. Everyone else had been taken from him, so why not Naruto?

* * *

The morning after the preliminaries, Naruto arrived at Team 7's meeting point as Kakashi had ordered in the missive that Pakkun had arrived with earlier that morning. Sakura and then Sasuke showed up about a minute later coming from two different directions, indicating that Sakura hadn't gone through her usual morning stalking routine that morning. Kakashi showed up two hours late as usual. The fact that the man looked hung over was not normal however. Before Kakashi could say a word however, Konohamaru's tutor bounded onto the scene.

"Sorry I'm late," the man whose name he thought might be Ebisu said. "The Honorable Grandson somehow managed to paint the Hokage's office orange, and the lecture I gave him ran longer than I had planned."

The look on Kakashi's face at this statement was absolutely murderous.

"The reason why I called you here today." Kakashi said once Ebisu had settled himself well away from the man who was quite possibly going to be having "words" with him later. "Is because I have had to arrange alternate instruction, since I cannot train all three of you for the third phase of the Exams..."

There were two potential instructors, and three of them. That meant... Yes! He was getting back with Tetsuo-sensei, finally!

"...Ebisu here will be taking Sasuke, Kamizuki Suzume has agreed to train Sakura, and I will be taking Naruto." Kakashi finished.

WHAT?

"But Kakashi..." he started.

He had to act fast, or his chance to spend a month with Tetsuo-sensei would be gone. He would have to think of an argument quick.

"What is it Naruto?" Kakashi asked.

"Wouldn't it make more sense for you to take Sasuke?" he asked, having gotten his inspiration from the horrified look Sasuke had given Konohamaru's tutor. "Both of you have the Sharingan, and Sasuke is a Lightning affinity like you as well. Not only that, but Sasuke will be going up against a rather dangerous Earth user who ripped that one guy apart."

"That does make sense Naruto, but..." Kakashi started, clearly not willing to let him go.

It was going to take a long argument to get rid of the man, and Sasuke really did need the training, so he wasn't entirely doing this for selfish reasons.

* * *

While Team 7 met, Inuzuka Kiba sat at Hinata's bedside as he had done for the past hour and a half. The medics had had to restart her heart twice since the preliminaries. Somehow, Hinata had managed to pull through though and was in the ICU instead of the morgue. He had come to visit the instant the hospital allowed it, despite the fact that the girl was unconscious, and he would stay by his teammate's bedside until she got better. He had nothing else to do, and even if he did have something else to do, he would still have visited.

It was a pity that Neji was untouchable at the moment due to the Exams. If he tried to do anything to the other boy, Shino could be disqualified because of his "Interference" since he was Shino's teammate. This little fact was only just barely holding him back from going up to Neji and ripping his balls off though.

If Shino didn't get the bastard during the Exams, he was going to murder him afterward.

* * *

Gai didn't know why he even bothered lecturing Neji about his unyouthful, and frankly somewhat psychotic actions during the preliminaries. The boy obviously hadn't been listening to him. Neji rarely listened to him when he tried to give him advice, unlike Lee. Lee was the perfect student, and quite possibly a distant relative.

Lee had been a great deal like him as a child. A hard-working boy who was called a loser, and determined to prove he wasn't. Lee had put in all the hard work to get where he was today, obsessively training day after day after day. All of that hard work was finally starting to pay off for Lee, just as it had for him when he was Lee's age. A month from now, Lee would be proving to everyone that a person could be an exemplary shinobi with Taijutsu alone.

Until that day came, he would train with Lee to prepare him for his coming ordeal, and try to figure out what he was going to do with Neji who would be training with his clan during the upcoming month. Neji would have to be dealt with soon however, since his being perceived as the sort who would attack comrades could completely ruin his career as a shinobi, and the whispers about what he had done to his cousin Hinata were already beginning to spread. The fact that his final attack took place after the fight had been declared over, and the fact that the Hinata girl was family wasn't doing his student any favors either.

* * *

Back at the Hyuuga compound, Hyuuga Hiashi watched the video of the fight between his eldest daughter and his brother's son. He had been advised of Hinata's condition as a result of that fight earlier when he had gone to visit his daughter at the hospital. Hinata had always been weak, and while he told himself it would be no great loss if she passed, and that it would solve the problem of who would be his heir, seeing her like that had hurt him deeply. She looked so much like her mother had in her final moments.

Turning his attention to the video, he watched in surprise as the trembling and weak creature he knew suddenly grew determined and began to battle her older cousin despite knowing the outcome in advance. He grew even more surprised when the girl rose after she lost, despite the fact that she had to be in almost unbearable agony, and was quite likely suffering from a heart attack at that time.

It would seem that Hinata wasn't so weak after all...

* * *

Jiraiya observed his future apprentice from a distance as the boy argued with little Kakashi. He would have to find the most opportune time for them to meet, the time when his student's son would be most inclined to accept his assistance. He couldn't just outright introduce himself as the boy's godfather, as that would raise some questions that he couldn't answer right now thanks to a set of orders he'd received from his sensei long ago. The fact that the boy knew a little bit about his mother might help answer some of those questions though, as he had become the child's godfather with his mother's consent.

Hiruzen-sensei had sent him periodic updates on the boy while he'd been away from the village, so he knew much of what had been going on in the child's life over the years. He had also managed to send one or two presents to the child that he was certain couldn't be tracked back to him over the years as well. Now, once he found the opportune moment, he was going to be directly interacting with Naruto for the first time since he had been a newborn.

* * *

As she left with Ebisu, Sakura honestly didn't know how the hell Naruto did it. Now, instead of one trainer for the Third Phase of the Exams, she now had three. Suzume who had been working with her for the past couple of months, an elite tutor named Ebisu who had owed Kakashi a favor, and possibly Kurenai who apparently would be having some free time on her hands if what Ebisu said when he mentioned the possibility of calling her in was true.

What had happened was that Naruto had somehow managed to talk Kakashi into taking Sasuke as his student, and somehow managed to fast-talk Ebisu into taking her on at some point during the argument as well. The next thing she knew was that Ebisu had taken her off to evaluate her skills, and had mentioned bringing in an acquaintance of his on occasion to possibly tutor her in Genjutsu since she had almost perfect Chakra Control.

All of these people who had arranged for her training and had been willing to train her obviously thought that she would succeed, otherwise they would not have decided to spend time working with her. She would have to do so in order to make sure that their time wasn't wasted. Despite the pressure this added, she would not let them down.

* * *

Sasuke growled as he packed enough supplies for a month-long trip after returning home from his team meeting. Kakashi was going to be taking him out for special training but, he was only doing it because That Boy hadn't wanted the man to be training him. He remembered the look of panic on That Boy's face when he started arguing for Kakashi to take him instead.

As far as Kakashi was concerned, he was something to be thrown aside, and That Boy was the real prize. He didn't know why since he disliked the man but, that realization really stung for some strange reason.

* * *

Tetsuo had been about to lay his daughter down for a nap when he heard the excited pounding on the door. He went to open it, and found a very welcome visitor on the doorstep.

"Hello Tetsuo-sensei." Naruto said grinning from ear to ear.

**Edited 11-28-12**


	23. Chunin Exams: Double Con

It had been nearing dinnertime on the third day since Naruto had resumed his training with Tetsuo-sensei. They had gone down to the small nearby hot spring village to pick up his Mrs. Shimura who had needed a day off when Tetsuo-sensei had noticed something that had seemed to be out of the ordinary.

"There's something I haven't seen since I was a kid. Brings back memories." Tetsuo-sensei muttered as he looked at whatever it was that had caught his attention.

Turning to look in the direction in which his sensei was focused, he saw a white haired pervert peeping into the women's side of the baths. Something about this stirred a vague memory, something about the people on his "To Prank" list. As he watched, Tetsuo-sensei turned and walked over to the man with a mischievous grin on his face.

"Oy! Jiraiya!" Tetsuo-sensei called out loudly once he was less than five feet from the man.

The white haired pervert who'd been peering through a hole in the fence whirled around quick as lightning and knocked Tetsuo-sensei to the ground, knocking him out cold. Oh wait, he didn't. Tetsuo-sensei didn't stiffen up like that when he was really unconscious. Oh goody, they were going to be pulling a con similar to the one that the team had once pulled in River country after Satoshi lost their traveling funds, except this time it hadn't been him who had thrown himself under the horse, or been attacked rather.

"Oh my god! Tetsuo-sensei!" he yelled, running over to his fallen sensei. "Tetsuo-sensei, are you alright?"

The the expression on the white haired pervert's face at this point was "Oh shit, what have I done?". Perfect. Hook, line, and sinker.

"He's still unconscious!" he yelled while Tetsuo-sensei continued to play dead. "You might have given him brain damage! I'm going to go and report this as soon as I find a Medic!"

Based on the pervert's panicked expression, he could confidently say that he'd just reeled him in. Should he actually go to the authorities that dealt with shinobi on shinobi crimes, the white haired pervert would be found to be in the wrong since there was a witness who could truthfully say for a fact that the white haired pervert had been the first to attack. Had Tetsuo-sensei say, attacked him, then there would have been no issue. But, since it would be two on one to say that the white haired pervert had attacked Tetsuo-sensei just for saying hello...Well, add in the possibility of a female mediator and the fact that the pervert had been occupied with peeping on the women's baths at the time of the attack, and the man was screwed. There would be a fine and a mark on the man's record at the very least. At worst, he could receive jail time and dismissal from the ranks if he was still active.

"Please don't!" the man who knew he was screwed pleaded. "I'll give you anything!"

Based on the pervert's actions, he was quite likely one black mark away from dismissal from the ranks or one charge away from serving several years of hard time, which was rather fortunate for him. Now, it was time for the most critical part of the con. If he didn't get this right, he'd just wasted the time of all three of them. Satoshi was a much better actor than him though, and would have had a much better chance of pulling this off. He was going to have to try though, and hope the mark never caught on.

He did his best to look as if he'd completely rejected the offer, got up, leaving Tetsuo-sensei's side, and started walking away. As he moved, he started looking as if he were generously considering the offer. He then heaved a sigh.

"I really shouldn't be doing this but, what have you got on you?" he said.

This was the part that would make or break the con. It seemed to have made it however since the man had started listing a bunch of useless things. It was time to put pressure on him to make him go for the valuables.

"Please hurry, I need to get a medic for Tetsuo-sensei." he said trying to sound worried about his sensei's condition despite the fact that he was standing here shaking the white haired pervert down instead of getting a medic like he should be doing.

The man listed the amount of money he had on him, his checkbook, and a Toad Summoning Contract.

Bingo!

Summoning contracts were extremely rare, and carefully guarded by the shinobi who managed to acquire them. Usually the guardians of said contracts only let students that they'd been training for years and trusted implicitly sign them.

"About that summoning contract..." he said.

The man was apparently still rather desperate not to be arrested.

"You want to sign the contract? I'll let you sign the contract." the man said as he pulled the aforementioned contract off his back and unrolled it. "I'll even teach you how to summon Toads later as well."

He made sure to be hesitant, and properly reverent as if he wasn't sure he should be doing this as he reached towards the aforementioned contract. It wasn't all that hard ti do so since there was a niggling suspicion in the back of his mind that it had been all too easy. Maybe why it seemed so was because it was more than likely that the man would skip out on the actual summoning lessons. Oh well, Kakashi had the dog contract, and would be able to teach him the basics. While the particulars of summoning differed depending on the animal, there was some basic commonality for all summons.

"You sign it in blood kid." the pervert said, when he moved for a writing implement.

He complied, putting his name and a set of bloody fingerprints down in the space right next to that of one Namikaze Minato which, if he remembered correctly, had been the name of the Yondaime.

"Well, now that that's taken care of..." the man said as he refurled the scroll, and turned to leave "Bye-bye."

Tetsuo-sensei got up as soon as the man was gone.

"Good job Naruto," Tetsuo-sensei said. "But, do you know that signing that contract will be absolutely useless without..."

"I'm not that stupid." he replied. "Kakashi has the dog summoning contract, he'll teach me the basics, and I'll figure it out how from there. If I didn't know where I would be able to find a teacher, I'd have shook him for cash."

* * *

Jiraiya chuckled to himself as he watched Naruto and his sensei from a hidden perch nearby. He couldn't wait to see the little con-artist's reaction when he found out exactly what he'd signed himself up for. He knew that it was going to come as a slightly nasty shock to the boy, but then again, the brat should not have tried to con him like that. He'd been avoiding cons like those for years, and knew how to spot them from a mile off.

Now that his business here was done, he was going to head over to the Tower and register his new apprentice. The boy would be his for five years, but unlike Kakashi who had tried to keep a stranglehold on him, he knew to give the child space and allow him to visit with his sensei. While many would have called him irresponsible for not raising his godson as he had agreed to do should something happen to little Minato and his wife, leaving little Naruto behind had been one of the most responsible and heart-wrenching choices he had ever made...

_Jiraiya protectively cradled the small bundle close to his chest. This had not been what he had in mind when he'd been named godfather to the child who had been named after a character in his book months earlier, but he was willing. He knew how to feed a baby and change diapers thanks to numerous D ranked missions that had been taken in his youth, and was confident that he could still do so even though it had been more than two decades since he had last done so. Even though he had wanted to be the "Cool Uncle" who showed up on occasion and spoiled the kid rotten, he was willing to drop everything to be Naruto's parent._

_"Think about this Jiraiya." his sensei said. "I'd gladly let you raise Minato's son if it were safe, but people are going to see that you have a blond haired blue-eyed child with you, put the facts together, and come after the child if he is with you. You can't always be there to protect him, and it would only take just once for something tragic to happen. It would be better for him if nobody knew exactly whose child he was, and I've taken steps to make it far more difficult for them to find out. "_

_"I could dye his hair." he said._

_"Even the temporary hair dyes we use are harmful to babies." his sensei replied. "Would you really risk the boy's health and safety because of your own selfishness?"_

_He knew his sensei was being logical, but his heart didn't want to accept what the man was saying. It was too painful. He'd lost so much, and now he would lose Naruto too..._

Coming back to train Naruto was the least he could do for the boy he'd unwillingly left behind long ago. While he would have to work around the fact that Naruto had a sensei he cared for and wasn't about to give up and wasn't about to be given up by again, and the fact that Kakashi was clinging to the boy like a limpet that refused to be pried off, he would find a way to make it work. He had to in order to make it up to the boy for being gone so long.

* * *

Instead of going home for the day as he'd been about to do when Jiraiya had turned up in his office, Third Hokage looked over the application his student had handed him. While he was tempted to say no, there was the fact that Naruto was no longer a small child, and could now look after himself as well. Naruto had proven himself capable of going up against an A ranked missing nin in the recent past, so that reduced the number of potential dangers to the boy quite a bit from the time he was a baby. Jiraiya had even found a reasonable and somewhat logical explanation for why he was taking Naruto as his apprentice that had nothing whatsoever to do with who Naruto's father was, so if anyone looked, they wouldn't get their answer from the application.

He would have liked to allow his student to have taken Naruto in as a baby, but he had known that it wouldn't have been feasible considering. Jiraiya had been running the intelligence network that was keeping tabs on Orochimaru, and the fact that the man had been Namikaze's sensei had been a well known fact. If anyone had seen a blond child with him, suspicions would have immediately been raised, and any number of children would have tried to kill the child "Just in case". Now, Naruto was old enough to be able to look after himself, and people probably wouldn't immediately associate him with his father other than to note a vague resemblance, as besides coloring, the boy took after his mother's side of the family very strongly.

Smiling, he added his signature and stamp of approval to the form. Naruto would be able to learn a great deal from Young Jiraiya, as the two had been very much alike when they had first started out in their lives, so Jiraiya was probably the one teacher who could best understand him.

* * *

After weaseling his signature onto the Toad Summoning Scroll, retrieving Mrs. Shimura whith Tetsuo-sensei, and going with them when they picked up the baby form her mother's, Naruto stopped by the hospital to visit Hinata on his way home. She was still unconscious when he arrived. Kiba was sitting by her bed, and Akamaru was curled up next to her whining slightly. He felt guilty as he gazed upon the tableau they made. This was his fault. If he hadn't encouraged her to fight a much stronger opponent, she would have simply curled up on herself, and bowed out unharmed except for her pride. Instead, she had fought, she had lost, and now she was just barely clinging to life.

After watching Hinata and her teammate for a while, he entered the room and took the other chair beside Hinata's bed. He half expected Kiba to growl and chase him out for what he had done to his teammate when he did, but he didn't do so. Instead, the other boy moved to give him more room.

"Hey Hinata." he said, as he picked up the hand that Kiba had apparently set on Akamaru. "You won't believe the day I had..."

As the unresponsive girl lay there, he told her the story of how he and Tetsuo-sensei had tricked some white haired pervert into allowing him to sign his summoning scroll, even though he was pretty sure that she couldn't hear him. It had been his fault that she had gotten hurt, and he would be there for her until she got better, and do whatever it took to make it up to her when she did.

**Edited 11-29-12**


	24. Chunin Exams: Training and Awakening

Naruto had been going over the finer points of his plan for dealing with his first match during the Third Phase of the Exams with Tetsuo-sensei - namely, don't let Neji get close enough to touch him, and use things that don't require Chakra if he does - when the white haired pervert that Tetsuo-sensei had informed him was named Jiraiya and was apparently one of a group of three legendary ninja who had trained under the Old Man Hokage before the Second War showed up.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, as he looked up from the information he and Tetsuo-sensei had managed to get on the Juken, in order to better form their strategy.

"I had a little spare time, and thought I'd drop by and teach you how to summon toads." Jiraiya said, going into some over the top pose as he did so.

What was it with ninja and drama? It was like they were deliberately trying to be contrary or something. You're told all through the academy that a ninja was not meant to be noticed and that there should be almost no sign of your passing, and just as soon as you graduate, and before then even...Well, there was Zabuza and his flying sword trick, the Exam Proctors and their suddenly appearing in a cloud of smoke due to several simultaneous shunshins, there was Anko flying in through a window and flinging a banner, there was Maito Gai's "Dynamic Entry", and there was this guy. Sure, a dramatic entrance could knock an enemy off balance and cause them to over or under estimate you depending on the situation, but it was also a good way to get yourself killed, since you've just pulled yourself away from any available cover and completely ruined the element of surprise.

"Great!" he said semi-excitedly once he'd finished internally grumbling about ninja and unnecessary drama.

It seemed that the pervert he finally remembered to have been the one who had ogled Suzume in the mixed baths that one time was actually holding to his word. That didn't mean that he wasn't going to prank him for upsetting Suzume though. He'd be taking care of that just as soon as the man finished teaching him how to summon Toads.

Toad summoning would actually be useful for his fight during the Third Phase of the Exams, as he could use the creatures as some sort of distraction while he set his traps and goaded the Hyuuga bastard into them. Neji would probably shit himself if he found himself facing a monster toad the size of the one that the Yondaime had ridden into battle against the Kyuubi. There was a picture of the thing in one of the history books he'd found in the library, and if he found himself looking up at one of those, he'd want to run himself. Since he wasn't the Yondaime, chances were that he'd only manage get some sort of medium sized toad however, but a few of those would be rather useful.

For the next few hours, while Tetsuo-sensei stood aside and watched, the pervert went over the basics of Toad summoning.

* * *

Several miles away from Naruto and his Toad Summoning lesson, Sasuke growled at his teacher. It was the closest he had come to speaking to the man over the last four days. That day, like every other day, the man had woken him up at an insanely early hour, ran him through a training routine from hell, and yet he expected more out of him?

"You know, that attitude problem of yours is the reason you didn't graduate early like Naruto did." Kakashi said, casually leaning against a tree with his nose buried in his perverted book as he had been doing for the last hour.

"WHAT?" he yelled, stunned by Kakashi's little revelation.

"Your attitude and apparent superiority complex which you seem to have inherited from your father was seen as potentially disruptive." Kakashi said calmly as he turned a page.

"The fact that an early graduation would have placed you on a team with older Genin would have been disruptive enough." Kakashi continued, still reading that book. "The addition of your rather atrocious attitude would almost certainly have sparked a number of power struggles within your team as the older Genin tried to maintain a dominant position, which would have resulted in a great deal of infighting, which would have had catastrophic effects on any mission such a team would be assigned to, as has happened with similar teams before."

"It was decided that unless your attitude improved, you would remain with your initial graduating class, since the members of that class would be able to compensate for and work around your behavior since they were already accustomed to dealing with it. Over the following years, your attitude got worse instead of better, and here we are, with you causing trouble as predicted." Kakashi casually concluded as he turned another page.

After listening to the Hatake's listing of his failings, he sat there stunned. The only reason he hadn't graduated with That Boy, or possibly even before him as he should have was because somebody thought he had an attitude problem? An attitude problem?

"Well now, ten more laps, and try to improve your time, as this is an exercise for increasing speed as well as stamina. If you're going to knock off Gai's student's routine like you tried to do during our spar yesterday, you'll need both." Kakashi said lazily, gesturing toward the track he'd worn into the grass over the last couple of days.

* * *

Over in the Hyuuga Compound, Neji continued his solitary training ignoring the strangeness of the last few days. Instead of the usual reverent treatment he got form the other Branch House members and the words of encouragement that accompanied it, everyone seemed to be dodging him, as if they didn't want to be associated with him for some strange reason.

It was probably because they thought that he would be up for punishment for what he had done to that loser Hinata during the preliminaries. While there was an awful lot of bad blood between the Main and Branch houses, there was no outright conflict besides the occasional argument. The reason for this was simple, the Main House held the lives of all of the Branch House members in their hands. As children, each Branch House member was marked with a seal which could seriously hurt or even kill them when activated by a member of the Main House. He'd learned about the pain the hard way early on when his uncle had activated his seal for merely looking at Hinata the wrong way several years ago.

It still felt strange however to receive fearful glances from his Branch House relatives as his family skirted him in the halls instead of approaching him and asking him how he was doing or how his training was going, or providing words of encouragement in regards to his future performance in the Third Phase of the Exams. Oh well, such was Fate, and if it was his fate to be shunned, then so be it.

* * *

Gaara smiled faintly when the man named Teuchi welcomed him with a smile and handed him his "usual". Over the last couple of weeks, he'd apparently become a regular enough customer that the man already remembered his preferred order the instant he saw him.

As always, the food wasn't the best, but the company was to die for.

When he was half-way finished with his meal, a brown haired Chunin with a scar across his nose sat down next to him. After giving him the usual initial once-over that he got from all shinobi who weren't native to Suna, the man simply went on with his life without showing any fear beyond the small amount of caution one gives a foreign stranger. It was unusual to him since the expressions he got at home were of varying degrees of terror, and the ones he got when he encountered foreign shinobi during a mission usually swiftly morphed into the same. He wasn't used to it being otherwise, and he didn't like the feeling of being ignored like this, the feeling that his existence didn't matter one way or another to the person who was sitting next to him.

He could feel his anger rising as the man continued to ignore him, but before it could get to the point where he would actually kill the man and quite possibly ruin some plans that had been in the works for months, something distracted him.

"Hey, Gaara was it? How's it going?" a familiar voice called out as a certain blond moved to sit next to the Chunin, and a brown haired man of average height with dark eyes that looked to be a Jounin sat next to the blond.

"...Okay." he finally replied.

"Good." the blond who seemed to have been somewhat aptly named after a ramen topping considering how much of the stuff he ate said before greeting the scarred Chunin who was apparently "Iruka-sensei" and answering the two men's questions about how he and Gaara met.

Instead of leaving him out of the conversation with the two men whom Naruto knew well, Naruto had tried to include him in it. As he sat there eating, he wasn't being ignored as he almost had been before Naruto had arrived, and he wasn't being looked at with a challenging expression the way many had looked at him before they realized his true strength, or with the expressions of abject terror that his fellow villagers usually bore when they encountered him. Instead, he was being treated as an acquaintance, and it was odd, and he wasn't exactly sure how he felt about it.

* * *

After several hours of training, Sakura flopped to the ground gasping for breath. She had known all of the basics from the Academy, and thought she was good, but Ebisu was on a whole 'nother level. This man had taken the Academy basics and turned them into an art. Not only that, but the man had a bunch of other tricks up his sleeve she'd never even imagined, and he intended on teaching her a number of them over the coming month.

She could see why the man was considered to be an elite tutor, and she felt honored to be learning from him.

"We'll work on that Genjutsu exercise Kurenai-san demonstrated yesterday." the man said after she had rested a while and gotten her breath back.

"Yes Ebisu-sensei." Sakura said, standing despite the fact that she was exhausted.

She was going to do everything in her power to prove to the man that she wasn't wasting the time he had devoted to her when he could be doing other more important things. She was going to grow stronger, and pass the Third Phase of the Exams, and show all of the people who had taken the time to teach her that their time hadn't been wasted.

* * *

Over on one of the training grounds, Lee kicked his practice stump for the six-hundredth time. He was training harder than usual for the Third Phase in the Exams. He was going to be up against a Puppet User during the first match, which meant that he was practically going to get two opponents instead of one right off the bat. And, if he defeated the puppet user, he would get a chance to fight Neji and show everyone what a "Genius of Hard Work" could do against a "True Genius" during the second round.

He would have to train really hard in order to be his best for that day. Fortunately, since Neji had wandered off to train on his own somewhere, Gai-sensei was there to help him every step of the way.

"Good work Lee!" Gai-sensei said as he continued his warm-up, shifting to his other leg.

"Thanks Gai-sensei!" he replied as he started counting kicks for his left leg.

He didn't know what he would have done if Gai-sensei hadn't been there for him since before he'd graduated the Academy. Probably dropped out of the Ninja Program altogether, believing that his Academy nickname of "Hot-blooded loser" was accurate and gone on to have a mediocre career in the food service industry. Fortunately, he'd never had to find out however since Gai-sensei was there for him, and would always be there for him the way he was now, smiling and encouraging him as he worked his way to new heights despite the pain.

* * *

In the hospital, Hinata winced at the pain she felt as she awoke. As she came to, she could feel something warm, fuzzy, and breathing under one of her hands. She was pretty sure that it was Akamaru, since she knew from experience that the dog had a pretty unique coat texture that was not quite coarse or soft. She had learned this when Kiba had allowed her to brush the dog on a few special occasions after they had become teammates. Considering how protective Kiba had been of Akamaru at the Academy, that had been quite the sign of trust.

When she opened her eyes, the light nearly blinded her. Eventually though, her eyes managed to adjust to the relatively dim hospital illumination. The first thing she noticed when she'd finally adapted to the light that she'd been without for so long while she had been unconscious was the bouquet on the nightstand. Apparently, someone had given her flowers. She had a difficult time trying to translate the meaning behind the bouquet until she realized that the flowers had been selected for color instead of meaning, since the predominant color was orange despite the rather unpleasant meanings of some of the flowers. The second thing she noticed was that the person she'd sensed was sitting by her bed wasn't Kiba as she'd expected since she was petting his dog, it was her father.

After realizing that her father was sitting at her bedside, she briefly wondered what he was doing there, before realizing that it was more than likely because he wanted to chastise her for being weak and failing to defeat Neji-niisan once again.

"I-I'm s-sorry father." she said once she found her voice.

She knew that the apology wasn't enough though. It would never be enough, just as she would never be good enough no matter how hard she tried because she would always fail.

"There is nothing to apologize for Hinata." her father said, before patting her on the head in a way she vaguely remembered from when she was very little, and leaving the room.

Had that really happened? It couldn't have, could it? She must still be dreaming. It must be the result of the pain medication that was undoubtedly in the I.V. that was connected to her arm. There was no way hell that her father would have let her go without a lecture on every last one of her failings as a Hyuuga, and as his daughter.

**Edited 11-29-12**


	25. Chunin Exams: The Big Day Arrives

"What did you just say?" Zabuza asked, hoping to god that he'd misheard his wife.

This couldn't be happening. Not yet. It was way too soon. They'd only just gotten married a little more than a month ago for heaven's sake.

"I'm pregnant." Mei repeated.

He hadn't misheard his wife as he'd been desperately hoping he had done. He was going to be a father, despite the fact that he wasn't ready and would never be ready. He wasn't cut out for this kind of life. He had been made for a life of action and adventure, not changing diapers. He didn't even know how to change diapers, since he'd never gotten a babysitting job during the four D ranks he'd taken as a Genin before they'd handed him C's because nobody wanted to trust him with anything that didn't involve killing. He honestly wasn't ready to face the fact that in eight months or so, he'd be responsible for a small thing that screamed, wet and crapped itself, and he didn't think that he ever would be.

Haku on the other hand was standing there grinning like an idiot, apparently happy at this turn of events. Well, it wasn't Haku that was going to be the parent, and it wasn't Haku who was going to be responsible for the care and feeding of the impending bundle of doom. After the wedding, Mei had made it quite clear what she would do to him if he tried to foist all of the childcare duties off onto his loyal follower.

"Congratulations Zabuza-sama." Haku said much too cheerfully for his tastes.

That settled it. He was going to find a wife for Haku, a wife that was willing to have lots and lots of babies, and they'd see who had the last laugh then.

* * *

Sasuke was somewhat surprised when he woke up to find the sun already in the sky. Usually, Kakashi would wake him up at some insanely early hour for more of the training from hell. As he looked at the already risen sun, he wondered at the feeling that today was important somehow, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of why. It was as he was counting the number of days that he'd trained with Kakashi that he realized what it was. Today was the the day of the third phase of the Chunin Exams, and if they didn't get a move on, they'd be late.

When the realization had finally sunk in, he shot out of his sleeping bag as if it were filled with flaming scorpions, raced out of the tent as if the very hounds of hell were on his heels, and went searching for Kakashi. There was no way in hell he was going to show up three hours late for something as important as the Final Phase of the Chunin Exams. After searching for several minutes, he finally found Kakashi lounging in a tree reading one of his ever-present pornographic novels.

"We've got to get out of here now or we'll be late!" he yelled up to the man, relieved that he hadn't disappeared altogether as he was occasionally wont to do.

"Late for what?" Kakashi asked lazily, not even bothering to look up from his book.

"Late for the Chunin Exams!" he replied.

"Whoops. Looks like I picked the wrong day to finally give you a day off." Kakashi said as he closed his book and dropped from the tree after tallying something up on his fingers.

He couldn't tell if the man was being serious or not since Kakashi had a really twisted sense of humor, and it was sometimes rather hard to tell whether or not the man was joking. Deciding not to bother wasting anymore time trying to determine whether or not Kakashi had actually been serious, he dashed over to the campsite wondering if they had time to pack their supplies. In the end, he decided to do so anyways, since there was no point in leaving stuff out where just about anybody could take it. More than one ninja had "scored free supplies" due to the carelessness of others in the past. He knew this for a fact since he'd seen That Boy scrounging for kunai and other unattended weapons on the practice fields when he was running low. As there wasn't really any time, he decided to sacrifice neatness for speed, and haphazardly threw everything within reach into his bag.

* * *

In his office in the Administration Complex, the Hokage sighed as a final guest arrived as he was preparing to depart to the local arena that was going to be home to the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams. Scheduling for the event had initially been a nightmare, as he'd had to work with the game schedule for Konoha's Ninjutsu team which had had an important match scheduled for today, as the playing season schedule had been drawn up well before the lots had been drawn up for the locations of this year's Exams. In the end, he'd been forced to give VIP seating and free snacks to the Konoha Tigers who were in charge of the arena when it was not in use for the Exams, in order to get them to forfeit today's match against the Fire Country Lions who had also had to be given VIP seating for the event.

Competitive Ninjutsu was a popular sport in the Elemental Countries, with each country fielding at least one team and each ninja village fielding a team of their own as well. Most members of the professional teams were retired shinobi, but trained civilians who had either failed the Academy or learned from relatives who had gone on to become ninja could be found on the teams as well, as there were rules against active duty ninja competing in such tournaments. Competitive Ninjutsu was pretty much what its name suggested, Ninjutsu against Ninjutsu, and the best Ninjutsu wins. Points were also given and taken for evasive ability and creative use of terrain or lack thereof. Bouts were either Singles or Team Trials and could last for several hours at a stretch. Some of the flashier moves first seen in the arena had found their way onto the battle field on occasion over the years, such as the Uchiha's Grand Fireball Jutsu which had previously merely been a jutsu that had been used to mark a certain rite of passage before it had been popularized by a top professional player from that clan sometime around the founding of the village.

He'd been torn from his musings on Competitive Ninjutsu that he'd been lost in as he'd grabbed his hat and got up to go in order to be on time for the opening ceremonies when Danzo had walked into his office with some last minute paperwork. Great. Just what he'd needed to start his day...

"Danzo, since the Intelligence Department seems to be your home away from home, maybe you could shed some light on why rumors about an Osuigakure which is supposedly located beneath Konoha have been making their way around the Academy." he said mildly as he signed a supply requisition form that had requested a couple hundred more kunai than the unit that was officially under Danzo's command would need in a year.

"Village hidden in the sewage?" Danzo replied as he took the form back. "Other than the fact that children tend to come up with the most unusual things, I don't know."

* * *

In the quarters that were set aside for visiting dignitaries, Orochimaru sighed as he arranged the Kazekage's robes once more. He didn't quite feel comfortable wearing the things, and understood why the brat who had taken the position that should rightfully have been his had ditched them in favor of a jacket. Honestly, they reminded him of the time he'd gone around in a dress after losing a bet to Jiraiya whom he was firmly convinced had cheated somehow. The fact that he was wearing his usual attire under the robes made things worse, as it was the hottest part of August, and this year was no exception.

He was dreading setting foot outside. While the Kage box at the Arena would be both shaded and air conditioned thanks to a number of near invisible seals, the route to the arena and future battlefield where he would be fighting his former sensei was not. Normally, this wouldn't be too much trouble for him since he was acclimated to Konoha's weather, having spent most of the first forty years of his life here, but today he was wearing far more layers than usual. In addition to his normal attire that consisted of underclothing, some armor, and his usual summer battle wear, he was wearing a long robe and an overcoat. He would have been over-warm in all this during the winter, but as it was summer, it was going to be a rather hellish walk.

Bracing himself, he stepped out of the special quarters that had been reserved for visiting Kage and into what had to be a furnace, if the sudden blast of hot air that hit him as soon as he was out the door was any indication. He wondered how he was going to keep from sweating and giving himself away by doing so since this would be nothing for the real Kazekage as Suna was worse, much worse.

* * *

At the other end of the village from the much too warmly bundled Orochimaru, Naruto sighed as he made his way to the arena. All he'd heard in the streets was speculation about the performances Sasuke and Neji were going to give today, and hopes for a Sasuke/Neji fight during the final round. Those who hadn't been able to score an arena seat would be able to watch the final phase of the Exams on a screen that had been set up outside, and would be able to catch the events in full or special highlights of the coming events at the local theater for the next month or so.

There was an almost palpable air of excitement in the village, as Konoha had not scored the more desirable and better attended Summer slot in a good long time. While Winters in Konoha were relatively mild, many of the lords who attended the final phase of the Exams did not enjoy traveling during that season, as a sizable number of them had to make their way over treacherous snowy passes and whatnot to even get to Fire Country. The excited air eased his tense mood somewhat, especially after his old team had dropped by to wish him luck that morning, and inform him that they'd be in the stands rooting for him. They'd had no doubts whatsoever that he could pass, and he had few doubts that he would pass as well. He'd gotten this far, and all he had to do now was kick everyone else's ass, starting with that bastard Neji. He just hoped he wouldn't look like an ass to the audience, and later generations who would be seeing his performance while doing so.

The white haired pervert Jiraiya had shown him the film of his own performance during the Exam finals before he vanished to wherever the hell he went when he wasn't teaching him summoning or trying to convince him to let some of that damn Fox out, and he hadn't laughed that hard in a long time. That wasn't exactly how he wanted himself to be remembered though. He wanted future generations to see how cool their Hokage had been as a kid when they studied him in history, not laugh at how stupid their Hokage had looked while fighting.

* * *

At Ichiraku Ramen, Gaara hastily drained his bowl as he prepared to leave for the arena in which the Third Phase of the Exams would be taking place. This was quite possibly the last time he would see the old man who ran the ramen stand and his daughter. He'd tried to order for them to be kidnapped prior to the invasion, but Baki had countermanded his order, and Baki would of course be paying for that after this bothersome invasion was over. While it was still possible that the old man would be taken and brought to Suna after the invasion was over and they and their allies won, there was still the distinct possibility that the small family would die before that could happen.

He'd been on the edge all week, and suffering from withdrawal since he'd not been allowed to kill anyone for the past month, and these little visits to Ichiraku had helped him center himself, and hold on until the time was right and he could unleash the demon he contained, whether it be Biju or an evil monk as his people had believed it to be. When he attempted to pay his tab after he'd finished his ramen that day, the old man told him that the bowl was on the house since he was a "friend of Naruto", before he wished him luck in the Exams.

The man had given him free food. The man had given him free food, and not in a "here, now please don't kill me" manner. That had never happened to him before. As he made his way to the arena, he tried to figure out what he felt about it. He knew that hadn't felt this since his uncle had passed, and didn't have a name for it. Whatever it was called, it wasn't entirely painful.

* * *

In a different section of Konoha, Shikamaru sighed and muttered Troublesome as he and his father made their way to the arena. Personally, he'd much rather be at home, but he knew that he'd never hear the end of it if he skipped this, and that would of course be more troublesome than just showing up, giving up, and getting it over with since he'd be hearing it from his usually rather laid-back father as well.

His father who was following his mother's orders and making sure he arrived was nursing a hangover because the man had gone out with his old teammates and gotten completely smashed the night before. When he'd gone to pick the man up from the restaurant, it had been while his father had been in the middle of sharing one of the more embarrassing stories of the original Ino-Shika-Cho team with another one of his friends. While learning new things was almost always interesting, he had not wanted to know that when his father and his teammates were Genin, people kept mistaking Yamanaka-san for a girl since the usual make-up of a Genin team was two males to one female, and that the man had been pursued by a particularly stubborn older Genin for more than three months before he had finally snapped and dropped his trousers in a rather crowded public area.

This morning had gone well enough though, making up for the embarrassment of the evening before. Both Ino and Chouji had stopped by to wish him luck. Not that he really needed it though. He was still debating on exactly when he planned on giving up.

* * *

In a another part of Konoha, Lee's heart pounded in excitement as he raced towards the arena and his future. Gai-sensei was keeping pace alongside him as he ran. This was it. This was the big one. This was the day he'd prove himself to everyone. There would be no more "Hot-blooded Loser." there would be Rock Lee, Chunin of Konoha and the next Green Beast...

* * *

In the quarters that had been the Suna team's home for the last month and change, Kankuro slung Karasu across his back. His heart hammered in his chest as he prepared to depart. Today was the day. Finally, after months of planning, and a tense month of waiting and hoping that Gaara didn't snap and either kill him or find some other way ruin everything, it had come.

Looking at Temari, he could see that his older sister looked just as nervous as he felt. She knew too. Today was the day, and it was too late to go back. Today, they would go to war.

**Edited 11-29-12**


	26. Chunin Exams: Naruto vs Neji

Naruto's heart pounded as he looked up at the crowd that was seated far above him. It seemed to take an eternity before his match was announced and everyone else in line was dismissed. Finally, after what seemed like forever, and yet no time at all, he was facing Hyuuga Neji, and waiting for the Proctor to start the fight. A few heartbeats later, Shiranui Genma called for them to begin.

He summoned a few shadow clones before darting towards the trees in order to set traps that would take advantage of the terrain, leaving a pair of clones behind to test the Hyuuga's reflexes and alter his traps accordingly. He was holding the toads he'd learned to summon in reserve. The pervert Jiraiya had been convinced that he would have been able to summon the boss Gamabunta if he'd just used the Kyuubi's power during the summoning lessons, but he had refused. There was no way he was going to let any more of that Fox out of the seal. Who knew what would happen if he did, or whether it weakened the seal every time he did so. He was however able to summon some rather large toads which he could use as a distraction if he needed to.

Neji was strong and fast, and leading him into his traps would be like herding cats, especially considering the fact that the Byakugan had a near perfect 360 degree view. He would have to wear him down until he was too worn out to use the Byakugan, while avoiding him completely. Pretty much what he'd figured he'd have to do considering the information he'd gathered on the Hyuuga.

Even with his amazing reserves and stamina, it was going to be tough, because he would have to make sure he didn't get hit. If he got hit by any of Neji's Juken strikes, it would be very bad for him because if his Chakra got cut off, there was little he would be able to do despite his amazing Chakra reserves. He would be forced to depend on his traps which would only work if the other boy became careless. He summoned and sent in a few more clones to soften the other boy up a bit more as he shifted elsewhere, watching the clones in hopes of finding Neji's blind spot.

Neji went into some sort of spin, emitting chakra as he did so and sent the clones and the weapons they threw flying in all directions. Whatever this was, it hadn't been in his information on the Hyuuga. He would have to probe it for weaknesses.

&!&!&!&

Anyone who knew Hiashi Hyuuga would have realized that his expression of mild surprise at the sight of Neji doing the Kaiten was tantamount to an expression of stupefied shock on anyone else. Kaiten had been passed down the line of the Main Branch from parent to child in secret for generations. Neither of his daughters were yet ready to learn the Kaiten, and Neji had somehow managed to reverse engineer and teach himself the technique after watching him.

He'd known his brother's son was a genius, but he hadn't known that he was on that level. It was only natural really, considering the fact that Hizashi had been better than him at just about everything.

&!&!&!&

Naruto evaded Neji who barely avoided the trap that he had herded the boy towards as he eluded him. So far, that odd spinning technique didn't have any holes that he could find, and he and his clones had attacked it from all angles he could think of. The only upside to this so far, was that Neji was wearing out just that much faster each time he used the technique.

Perhaps if he used a jutsu rather than a physical attack?

He knew that he could have done this jutsu or any other for that matter, when Neji wasn't spinning around like a top, but he was curious to find if this unusual defense was truly impregnable. Such knowledge would be useful to both him and the Hyuuga clan in the future, as if he could find and exploit such a weakness, then someone else could, and that could cost a Hyuuga - quite likely this one - their life in the future.

"Fuuton: Kazekiri no Jutsu." he called out after making the requisite hand seals for the attack. He wasn't quite proficient enough with the jutsu that he could drop the name as he did the attack, as the jutsu's name was a focus of sorts, kinda like an extra handseal. After enough practice, he could start dropping a number of seals, and eventually the name of the attack itself. Eventually, he would be able to master it to the point that he would be able to call it up with little more than a thought, but that was years, and possibly even decades down the line.

The blade of wind flew towards the whirling Neji, and parted as it met his Chakra shield. He would have to think of something else. Perhaps if he created a counterspin? His Twister Shot wasn't all that good, as he hadn't had much opportunity to practice it, but it probably would work for his purposes. He did the requisite handseals and blew out a small tornado of Wind laced chakra that spun in the opposite direction of Neji's whatever the hell it was. Both techniques collided, wind blew in all directions nearly knocking him over as it ripped up plants around him, and a massive cloud of dust formed. When the dust cleared, Neji was on his ass.

Neji quickly got up, and made his way towards him, looking almost completely uninjured. The attack apparently wasn't a total failure, as it softened him up a bit. It was time to send in the clones to soften him up even further. Since the boy obviously had a temper, if his behavior at the end of his match with Hinata during the preliminaries was any indication, a bit of "battle banter" might be in order to make him lash out and make a critical mistake. The boy was close to one of his better and more vicious non-lethal traps, if he could just push him into it...

"You know how you were going off on Hinata for being a failure, and how it was her fate to lose?" one of the clones said. "Well, look who Fate decided was the loser now. Not only am I going to win, I'm going to kick your ass for what you did to Hinata. Nobody hurts my friends, much less tries to kill one of them in front of me. I swear, there has to be something seriously wrong with you if you're willing to pull an Itachi in public."

Neji responded to this by going into a long lecture about Fate which included a story about why he hated his cousin so much. Throughout the lecture that included a listing of exactly why Hinata was supposedly a total loser and anyone whom she befriended couldn't be that much better, especially a clanless orphan, he carefully nudged the boy towards the trap. Since Neji seemed so preoccupied, it seemed that his little plan would succeed.

"Man, you're a total asshole." he said when Neji had finished his story which included a bit of show and tell involving a seal. "What gives you the right to decide who is and isn't a loser and tell people that Fate decreed it to be so? What gives you the right to decide what someone's fate is? You're not a deity, you're just some jerk who isn't even willing to admit that the reason he went after his cousin was simply for revenge."

Neji moved forward to attack. Good, if he could get him more towards the right, and keep him distracted while doing so...Now for the kicker...

"Hinata wasn't the failure, you are." he said, goading him toward the trap he'd set up. "Hinata worked hard to change herself, and wouldn't stay down even after she was defeated. You on the other hand, don't try to change things or yourself, and go crying about fate when things don't go your way. I'm willing to bet that after this match is over, you're going to go on and on about how it was your fate to lose to a stronger opponent while plotting to take me out the moment you are given the opportunity to legally do so. You're pathetic."

Bingo. There went Neji, there went the trap, and he didn't even have to pull out any of his toads to win. Pity. He'd been looking forward to seeing the expression on that guy's face when he summoned a toad the size of his bedroom. Ah well, he could always summon one later, and iff that jerk tried anything, he'd be getting a close and personal view of the interior of a toad's digestive tract.

"How does it feel to be beat by someone everyone used to call a loser?" he asked the boy who was barely conscious and unable to rise. "Two and a half years ago, just about everyone would call me a loser and believed that I wouldn't amount to much if anything. I graduated the Academy by the skin of my teeth, and was only barely competent when I did so. I spent the next couple of years building myself up practically from scratch with the help of Tetsuo-sensei, and now, well...Watch who you call a loser jerk, people do change, and chances are that the the guy you constantly put down will end up kicking your ass in the end."

"Winner: Uzumaki Naruto." the proctor said, when Neji finally lost consciousness.

&!&!&!&

Hyuuga Hiashi watched as his twin's son was carried off by Medics. Hizashi had always been the better of the two of them. It had been Hizashi who had almost always won their sparring matches. It had been Hizashi who had produced a son. It had been Hizashi's child who had proven to be quite possibly the most powerful Hyuuga in generations. It had only been by chance that he had been the head of the clan rather than Hizashi. Hizashi would have made a better clan head as well.

He had failed his brother's son, the way he had failed the rest of his family, especially Hizashi. He hadn't known that the boy had harbored such hatred and resentment within him. He hadn't gotten close enough to notice, as looking at the boy was painful, since he was the spitting image of his father, the mirror image that had always been there until one day it wasn't and he was forced to live in a world without Hizashi, because of his own ill-thought actions.

It was long past time that he should have a serious talk with the boy. When he did so, he would finally hand over a letter he should have given him long ago, but had selfishly held onto because it had been the last thing Hizashi had given him before he died.

&!&!&!&

Lee felt a pang of jealousy as Neji was carried off the arena floor after having lost to someone named Uzumaki Naruto. That should have been his victory. Neji should have won so he could face him in front of everyone in the next round, and prove that a Genius of Hard Work could defeat a "Natural Genius". He had trained so hard for the day he could finally defeat Neji. Today however, apparently wasn't that day.

He would still be able to prove that a person could be a great shinobi with Taijutsu alone. He was up next, against one of the Sand Genin, a puppeteer named Kankuro. He would have to fight both the boy and the puppet to win.

He made his way down to the arena floor as the Uzumaki boy made his way back up. He would fight him one day and see which of them proved superior. If what the boy had said in the arena was true, the Uzumaki was quite possibly a genius of hard work like himself. That was a fight he could look forward to.

Finally, he stood facing his opponent, or possibly his opponent's puppet in front of the Proctor.

"You got here because you got lucky. It won't take much to defeat you." his opponent said.

The proctor called the beginning of the match, and he raced forward. He was going to make that Suna nin eat his words. He knew that such thoughts were decidedly unyouthful, but he wasn't really in a good enough mood to care at the moment. He would apologize to Gai-sensei and make up for this lapse later. Now, he was going to win.

&!&!&!&

Neji woke up to the sight of a plain white ceiling and the general fuzziness of painkillers. He could still feel the pain from the injuries that had been inflicted by that trap he'd stumbled into. Being forcefully pinned in place before being slightly roasted and electrocuted wasn't fun. Right now, he felt like he had an all-over sunburn. Thank god someone had come up with the idea of fire-proofing shampoos and conditioners, otherwise his hair would have been worse than lightly singed.

When he got out of here, he would make the Uzumaki pay. He would...damn it. The little bastard had been right. The instant the match was over, he'd started plotting revenge.


	27. Chunin Exams: Three more matches

Sakura honestly hadn't known what to expect from the boy who had almost handed Sasuke his ass in the Academy hallway before the start of the exams over a month ago. As the boy had been older and in a completely different cycle, she hadn't really known him from Adam. When she had questioned the boy's former classmates in order to gain information for her strategy for if she somehow managed to win enough times to face him, and vice versa, the word that had come up the most was "Loser". The boy's appearance and manner may have been over-bright and disturbing to her sensibilities, but still, he had made it this far, and it couldn't have entirely been on the merit of his teammates - or teammate rather - Hyuuga Neji, last year's Rookie of the Year, and a seemingly insurmountable obstacle that she had been unable to come up with a plan for, as people seemed to believe. Lee's opponent Kankuro was an unknown variable as well. She knew that the boy used puppets, but that was all she really knew about him, as there had been nobody to gain intelligence on him from.

The fight opened with Rock Lee immediately charging at his opponent. The blow that sent the other boy flying also revealed that it had been the puppet rather than the person who had stood facing Lee at the beginning. Either that, or the Kankuro boy was a master of the Kawarimi to the point that it was both seal-less, and unaccompanied by the smoke that was usually present during such elementary techniques, much like Kakashi. Lee seemed to be somewhat confused as to who to go after at that point, but decided to continue going after the puppet, apparently since if he followed that plan, he'd pretty much only be facing the puppet rather than both the Puppet and his opponent.

After several attacks that nearly destroyed the puppet, there was a strange clicking noise that came from within the puppet in question as it changed shape, rearranging itself into a different form that revealed a wide array of weapon launchers. One of the launchers started releasing a shower of senbon that may have been poisoned considering the fact that it was common to do so in Suna. Lee was fast, barely fast enough to dodge. All it would take would be one hit however.

"Lee! Take them off!" Gai's voice boomed over the roar of the crowd.

Lee then shot for the trees that ringed the arena, tugging on one of his leg-warmers the instant he reached them. The boy was obscured by the bushes for a moment, but after a loud thud - two loud thuds rather - a green blur shot back into the arena at an almost insanely high speed. Whatever it had been that Lee had been wearing, had apparently slowed him down considerably.

Instead of going after the puppet this time, Lee went after the one controlling it. The boy didn't have the time to evade before a barrage of blows rained down on him courtesy of one Rock Lee. The puppet flew to his aid, but wasn't fast enough, because he went down thanks to a rather precise and very powerful kick to the head which had been delivered shortly after Lee had dodged another volley of senbon and had returned in the instant before the puppet could fire again.

As the proctor announced Rock Lee's victory, she found herself amazed at how strong the boy was, and lamenting the fact that he didn't look better. In the very short time she had known Lee, he had treated her better than Sasuke had over all the years she had known him. It was better to not think about that. She was going to be Mrs. Uchiha. There was no way in hell that she'd lose to Ino in anything. She'd beaten the girl in battle, and she would beat the girl in romance as well.

The fact that Sasuke had not yet arrived was worrisome. If he missed his match, he would forfeit. Fortunately, he and Gaara were last, so there was still a little time.

&!&!&!&

Sasuke frantically sprinted through the streets with Kakashi following behind him at a more sedate pace. He probably would have been at the arena on time if Kakashi hadn't picked a training area that was so far from the village. He tripped over a garbage can that had been blocking the alley he'd decided to use as a shortcut, and failed to notice was in his way in his haste to get to the arena in time for his match at the very least. The contents of the can went flying everywhere, and he landed in them.

"That's what happens when you rush things." Kakashi said as he helped him pick some bits of orange peel off his clothes.

"I wouldn't have needed to rush things if you had woke me up on time." He snapped at the man as he slapped his hand away. As far as he was concerned, this was all Kakashi's fault.

He stood up and started running again, cursing as he stepped into a puddle of god knows what that had been lying in the middle of the street he turned onto.

&!&!&!&

Neji looked down at the letter his uncle had given him. He had immediately recognized the handwriting on it from the notes his father used to leave behind for him before he went on missions. The scroll on which it had been written was well worn and appeared to have been looked at often. He remembered the slightly reluctant manner in which his uncle had handed it over, almost as if he hadn't wanted to give it to him despite the fact that he was the one it had been addressed to.

His father had defied his fate the only way he could at that point. He had chosen the reason for his death, rather than allow anyone else to chose it for him. He hadn't died for the sake of protecting the Main House, he had died for the sake of Konoha, his brother, and the rest of his family, and went knowing that his brother had been willing to die rather than sacrifice him.

Instead of honoring his father's sacrifice, he had hated the very people his father had died to save, and had savagely attacked the girl he'd once admired the most for being one of the sweetest and kindest people he'd ever known, the girl he'd once been happy to protect, not just because she was of the main house, but because she had been his friend as well. After his father's death, he'd spurned the love that Hinata had held for him as a member of her family, and done everything he could to hurt her. She still kept trying to reach out to him despite this.

Naruto was right. He was a pathetic asshole. If Naruto was right about that, then there was a chance that he could be right about the possibility of him being able to change. He would have to test it and see who was right about that in the end.

&!&!&!&

Shikamaru sighed. He just had to be given the worst opponent out of all of them. He honestly hadn't even wanted to show up in the first place, since he'd planned on giving up, but knew that he'd never hear the end of it if he skipped and that would be more bothersome than simply turning up and getting it over with. He had run a variety of scenarios through his head over the last month and had come to the conclusion that with the Aburame, it would end in a double knock-out at best since he didn't want to outright kill the boy over a simple competition.

The other boy's swarm was a near perfect counter to his Kagemane technique. He could possibly get a fatal or in this case winning blow in before Shino's swarm took him out, but that would render him unable to compete in the next round, which would more than likely be against the Suna girl Temari. Better Shino than him in that situation, as far as he was concerned. Defeating Temari would be tricky, and he didn't want to go through the trouble of doing so.

When the proctor called out that it was his turn, he opened his mouth to say he gave up only to find himself being picked up by two of his fellow competitors and thrown into the arena.

"I'm sorry about this, but Ino paid me, and it would be dishonorable not to fulfill my end of the bargain." Rock Lee called down.

"You got paid?" Uzumaki Naruto, Rock Lee's partner in crime said.

Great. If he quit now, he'd have to go through the work of getting back into the contestant's box for nothing. Since he was already here, he may as well go ahead and get it over with.

The fight started, and went pretty much how he figured it would go. He quickly caught Shino with his Kagemane jutsu, and Shino quickly caught him with his swarm of Kikaichu. He quit before he was drained too much by the creatures. Now that that was over, he could rest until this bothersome tournament was over, and it was time to go home.

&!&!&!&

"Well, well, look who finally showed up." one of the two guards at the entrance to the arena said. "It's a good thing too, since I think there would be a riot if you were disqualified before your match took place since many people have traveled a long way to see the last Uchiha fight."

"You're up next since the battle between the Haruno girl and that girl from Suna just started." the other guard said as he waved them inside with a hand which held a portable radio on which an announcer's voice could be heard.

He groaned as he swiftly made his way to the competitor's box. No matter how much Sakura had improved, the Suna girl would swiftly beat her. There was no time to shower and change in order to get rid of the scent of the trash he'd landed in or whatever the heck had been in the puddle he'd splashed through on the way here. Fortunately, his clothes were in a good enough condition that he'd look okay from a distance.

When he reached the balcony that overlooked the arena, it had been in time to see a slightly battered looking Sakura bat a fan out of the Suna Wind mistress' hand and launch herself into a pitched battle, apparently trying to negate the other girl's advantage by engaging in close quarters fighting. It was obvious from here that Sakura was going to lose, but she put up one hell of a fight as she did so, making the older and stronger girl pay dearly for her victory.

The pink haired girl that had followed him everywhere, begging for attention fought like a cornered animal. Along with the standard Academy Taijutsu and a style she'd picked up from That Boy's former teammate, the girl had apparently learned several dirty tricks. Throwing dirt into an opponents eyes was probably the oldest trick in the book, but it was highly effective when it succeeded. It failed here however, as the Suna girl had been able to dodge, apparently taught from infancy how to avoid such attacks, since she lived in the middle of a desert near an area that was almost nothing but sand. Sakura had apparently gotten her nails sharpened the last time she'd gone in for a manicure as well, if the scratches she gave the other girl were any indication.

He could see that the reason Sakura had gotten so many blows in while not taking nearly the amount of damage she should have was because the girl was using a very subtle Genjutsu that shifted her opponent's perspective slightly. Blows that would normally have hit vital areas were just a little bit off, and there were a few near misses where there should have been hits. The other girl had not yet discovered the Genjutsu and therefore hadn't started to compensate for it. Her choice of Genjutsu was rather intelligent, because something more obvious would have immediately been spotted and dispelled. This one however, gave Sakura a slight edge since it was far more difficult to notice.

Sakura had rather clearly improved over the last month or so. She was still annoying however.

Sakura eventually lost, as it had been obvious she would do from the start. Her opponent had been trained in both close quarter and ranged combat, and had been older, larger, and had a few years more experience. Surprisingly enough, it had come close a couple of times, and Sakura had been able to hold her own for a while - damaging her opponent severely at one point - but she still lost.

The crowds cheered as the medics carried Sakura out of the arena and towards the infirmary. It was now his turn. He jumped into the arena, ignoring the comments of "What the hell did Sasuke roll around in?" and "He could have stopped to shower at the very least if he was going to show up as late as he did." from the other competitors. He stood in front of the proctor waiting as his opponent took the long way around, going down the stairs instead of over the railing. It was finally time. After a hellish month of hard work, he would finally show everyone the true might of the Uchiha.


	28. Chunin Exams: Wave and Water Interlude

Hoshigaki Kisame was having a very good day. Earlier that morning, he and Itachi had managed to score a free tent. This had been an especially good bonus because their last tent had become more patches than tent over the last few years, and the Akatsuki didn't have a budget for "camping supplies" thanks to Kakuzu's penny pinching ways. They had just gotten off one of the "money missions" they occasionally had to take to fund the Akatsuki's other activities, and were headed back to Ame with the pay.

Itachi had managed to scrounge up a radio from somewhere, which was excellent, considering the fact that today, the Konoha Tigers would be facing off against the Fire Country Lions. Competitive Ninjutsu was always good for a laugh, and since there weren't any particularly pressing matters, he and Itachi could sit for a couple hours chilling and listening to the game. Today was a particularly good day for such things, since the sun was shining, there was a light breeze coming in off the ocean from the East, and he'd managed to get his hands on a case of beer recently, which he had stuck in the nearby stream to cool.

Finally, after a few minutes of fiddling with the radio, it was on Fire Country International.

_"...regret to inform you that the game between the Tigers and the Lions won't be taking place today. Our loyal listeners will be getting a special treat instead, as the reason for the cancellation was due to the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams..."_

"Change it." he said. He wasn't exactly in the mood to hear about a bunch of Genin inexpertly wailing on each-other in hopes of becoming Chunin.

_"...The first match will be Hyuuga Neji vs. Uzumaki Naruto, both of Konoha. The second match will be Kankuro of Suna vs. Rock Lee of Konoha. The third match will be Aburame Shino vs. Nara Shikamaru, both of Konoha. The fourth match will be Temari of Suna vs. Haruno Sakura of Konoha. The fifth match will be Gaara of Suna vs. Uchiha Sasuke of Konoha..."_

"No. I think I'll leave it here for a while." Itachi said, pulling back the hand that had been very slowly reaching for the radio's tuning knob.

"A hundred ryo says that the Kyuubi Jinchuriki wins the first match." he said.

"No bet." Itachi replied.

&!&!&!&

Inari sat in front of the old radio in the inn twitching in excitement as he waited for the first match of the Exams to start. He and his Grandpa had dropped by to fix one of the walls that had been destroyed a few days earlier during a fight between a pair of Genin from Kirigakure who had been escorting an exceedingly fat merchant. Someone had turned on the game, and instead got a surprise announcement.

Naruto would be competing in a tournament, and he was up first. He was up against some guy named Neji, but he was sure Naruto would win very quickly. Naruto was the most awesome ninja ever. As soon as the announcement had been made, several people rushed out of the inn to get everyone they could find. There was no way in hell anyone was going to miss this.

_"...as we wait for Proctor Shiranui Genma to announce the start of the first match, a message is coming in over the radio network from the Former Whirlpool Citizen's Alliance in the Nation of Wave wishing Uzumaki Naruto luck, and that everyone there will be rooting for him. For those who don't know, the Uzumaki were a prominent clan in the former ninja village of Uzushiogakure which had once been Konoha's closest ally..."_

Inari grinned as he listened to the message. He knew exactly who sent it, since there was currently only one certified radio operator in Wave, and he was a jack of all trades, including bridge building.

_&!&!&!&_

Haku turned on the radio, hoping to distract Zabuza-sama from his anxiety over the impending arrival of his child or possibly even children. Zabuza-sama hadn't been doing so well since Mei-sama had made her announcement, and had had a minor panic attack when he'd brought up the possibility of twins, since there was a history of that occurring in Mei-sama's family.

A nice game would be exactly what Zabuza-sama needed to get his mind off things. There usually could be one found at this hour on just about any station that wasn't devoted to music. Even the religious stations ran commentary on sports of various kinds. The Jashinists' commentary on the River Country Soccer Tournament had probably been the most disturbing thing he'd ever heard.

He casually flipped through the stations until...

_"Hoppy the Frog and Friends has been cancelled in favor of the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams which are taking place in Konoha this year. While we normally don't air Chunin Exams in which Kirigakure Ninja aren't competing, we thought people might be interested in the fact that Uzumaki Naruto who fought Momochi Zabuza one-on-one and survived is one of the Genin competing. We now go live to Konoha...**And that's the signal. The first round of the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams has officially started, and it looks like Uzumaki Naruto is making the first move of the fight. What move will he make, and how will Hyuuga Neji who is favored to win counter it?...**" _

He hoped that Zabuza-sama wouldn't order him to turn the radio off, it sounded like it would be an interesting fight, though he disagreed with the announcer. Naruto would be winning of course, not the Hyuuga he'd never heard of.

_&!&!&!&_

In a popular Kiri Shinobi bar Mizuko and Kampachi nearly spit their drinks out when they heard what was on the radio instead of the Tigers vs. Lions game.

_"...Has formed a number of Kage Bunshin which have scattered. Several have moved to engage the Hyuuga..."_

"What is it Kampachi?" one of the other patrons asked.

_"_The Kyuubi Jinchuriki is competing in the Exams." Kampachi replied.

_"_The one who ripped up those two Iwa Genin a year and a half ago during the Winter Exams?_" _the concerned bar patron asked.

"Yeah," Mizuko replied, after finishing his drink in record time. "I figured he would have been promoted long before now myself."

"That Neji boy is going to be creamed." Mizuko's fellow drinking companion said.

"Creamed?" Kampachi said. "He'll be eviscerated."

_"_A Hundred-thousand Ryo says the Uzumaki wins it all." Mizuko said, slamming the money down on the counter.

"You're on." Kampachi said as he pulled the same number of bills out of his wallet and slammed them down next to Mizuko's money.

_&!&!&!&  
_

The pair of Iwa Chunin groaned when they returned to camp. They had been hired to escort a merchant to Wave Country which had recently re-opened trade with the rest of the world after the collapse of GatoCorp, and had decided to hang around for a day or so to enjoy the nice if somewhat humid coastal weather before they trudged back home, which would be roasting hot right about now.

They had decided to go fishing, and had set out early that morning, forgetting rule number one in the process. It seemed that they weren't the only ninja in the country, as someone had expertly bypassed and disabled all their traps before making off with anything and everything they considered useful, including Kuarutsu's toothbrush.

Seeing as they needed those supplies, it looked like they would be spending their afternoon tromping around the island looking for the thief or thieves. That had not been how they had wanted to spend their day. Things would most definitely be getting even worse by nightfall, as when they finally found their supplies, they would have to fight to get them back, and one or both of them would probably be nursing injuries on the way home depending on the skill of their opponents.

After about half an hour, they found themselves at a camp near a stream that contained a very familiar tent.

_"...Is over. Uzumaki Naruto expertly led Hyuuga Neji into a trap which simultaneously burned and electrocuted him that the experts say they have not seen in decades. As our panel of experts are retired shinobi with more than a century and a half of experience combined between them, this is saying something. We will now go to the head of our expert panel, Council member Utatane Koharu for a more detailed explanation..."  
_

"Hey!" Kuarutsu yelled "That's..."

"Yes?" a voice said as a head poked around the tent. A very familiar head, with a face that he and his companion had last seen in a Bingo Book, amongst the S-Class entries.

"...That's a neat tent." Kuarutsu continued, swallowing down the diatribe he'd had planned. There was no way in hell he was going to be getting himself killed over some measly camping supplies. "Me and my friend here lost ours, do you know where we could get another one?"

"There's a camp about two miles in that direction that seems to be unattended." Hoshigaki Kisame's partner who was also another familiar face from amongst the Bingo Book's S-Class entries said as he pointed in the opposite direction from their camp.

"Gee, thanks." Kuarutsu said. "We'll just be going now."

With that, they both fled. Hopefully, they'd be a little luckier at the next camp over. The unofficial shinobi supply rule number one stated that any supplies left unattended were fair game.

&!&!&!&

Sato and Ichiro walked back to their camp. They were so close, yet so far, as the place they really wanted to be was about a day's travel away. They had wanted to be part of the coming action today, but had been forced to remain behind and take missions so things would look like business as usual, and Konoha wouldn't become suspicious until it was far too late and Suna's forces were breaking down their gates with their new allies. Part of business as usual included lingering for a day or so if they could swing it, as Ninja weren't usually eager to hurry home to the extreme weather that would be waiting for them in the hottest parts of Summer or coldest parts of Winter, unless there was someone practically riding their asses.

If they had tried to swing by Konoha sometime today, it was possible that they would have arrived at the wrong time and aroused suspicions, ruining months of careful planning and obsessively rehearsed synchronized movements of which they hadn't been a part. They would be able to hear Suna and Oto's grand victory as it happened though, as Sato had thought to bring a radio with him.

"It's gone!" Sato called out from the tent.

"What's gone?" Ichiro asked.

"The radio and about half of our supplies!" Sato called back.

"Fucking Iwa bastards." Ichiro snarled as he kicked a tree. He'd spotted a pair of Iwa Chunin casually fishing off the new bridge when he and his partner had gone into town for breakfast that morning.

It was at that point that said "Iwa Bastards" attempted to sneak up on their camp. They managed to overpower the pair after a struggle.

"Give back our radio." Sato snarled at his captive.

"We don't have it." One of the Iwa nin said.

"We don't think you'll want to try getting it back either." The other Iwa nin said as he struggled against Ichiro's grip.

"And why not?" Ichiro asked. If those bastards had done something to the radio, they were dead.

"Same reason we didn't try taking our tent back." the first Iwa nin replied. "Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi have it."

"Bullshit!" Sato said as he punched his captive.

"You don't believe us? Come look for yourselves." Sato's captive replied.

Ichiro and Sato found themselves dragging their captives two miles to a campsite that was set in a rather nice clearing next to a stream. Seated in front of a tent that looked like it had recently come from the Iwa Supply Warehouse, next to the missing radio were a pair of men in black cloaks with red clouds on them.

Ichiro and Sato moved to dispel what had to be a Genjutsu and found the men still sitting there listening to their radio. The black haired one turned to look at them.

"Quiet." he said. "My brother's up next."


	29. Chunin Exams: Invasion!

Kakashi watched as his student Sasuke stood facing Gaara. Training Sasuke one-on-one for a month had been rather trying to his patience. The attitude problem alone had been enough. That boy never appreciated what was given to him. Probably because just about anything and everything were given to him if he indicated that he wanted it by people who either pitied him for being left alone in the world, or sought a small amount of the power he would hold in the future. When something wasn't handed to him when he wanted it, Sasuke became upset, and exceedingly jealous of anyone who had what he wanted. This character flaw hadn't entirely been because of the massacre, as Sasuke had been the beloved younger son of the head of the Uchiha clan, and as a result had been spoiled practically from infancy by his clan. He himself had given Sasuke something most precious, and was almost certain he would regret it. He already was starting to, because the boy hadn't appreciated it or the other training he had given him.

Part of the responsibilities of being a teacher is passing things down to the next generation. There was one thing he knew that he unfortunately could not pass down to Naruto. In fact, Sasuke was the only member of the next generation that it could be passed down to. There was a good chance that Sasuke would not be his student for much longer, considering some of the better offers he had gotten for the boy from Jounin who were looking for an apprentice but, as Sasuke's teacher, for however long that he would be, there was one thing he could teach the boy, and that was the Chidori.

He'd had reservations about teaching the boy the technique, considering the anger problem the child had, and his tendency for overkill, but the technique was too valuable to die with him the way the Hiraishin had died with Minato-sensei. Had there been more Uchiha however, he would have held out until he had found one who was worthy, one who had been more like Obito, one who would have truly appreciated what he'd been given, and the hard work and sacrifice it hat represented. All that was left of that clan however was a boy who had not appreciated what had been given to him, a boy who was like he had once been in many ways, but far more arrogant. At the very least, he had had respect for his sensei since day one. Sasuke lacked even that respect.

Hopefully, he wouldn't be seeing the Chidori during this battle, but considering Sasuke's character, he knew that the boy would be trying it at least once, and possibly lose the match because of the extensive amount of prep time it took.

The match started with Sasuke making a few jabs at the potential unknown that was Gaara of Suna. He had seen surveillance of Gaara in action, and knew that the sand moved on its own, crushing and tearing opponents, and forming a protective barrier around the Suna Genin. What else it could do was uncertain. Lightning however was strong against Earth type defenses, so this was a good match for Sasuke who was of that affinity as well as Fire.

He felt Gai stiffen next to him when Sasuke really started to move rather than merely poking the boy's defenses to see what would happen, trying to get around the sand that surrounded his opponent with speed after a minor Lightning attack had failed. He knew exactly why. Gai had shown Lee's skills off to him at one point, hoping to impress him, and therefore had recognized Sasuke's new fighting style as a copy of what little of Lee's style he'd observed sped up to Lee's true speed rather than the weighted speed the boy had witnessed when Lee had almost handed him and later Chouji their asses.

He could tell that while Gai was impressed with Sasuke's skill, he wasn't happy. Gai had taught Lee his fighting style, because he had selected the boy as his apprentice. To see another using it so casually, especially someone who wasn't his student and hadn't spent so much as an hour learning under him... The Sharingan and its copying ability had fostered resentment wherever the Uchiha went, so this was nothing new.

&!&!&!&

TenTen found her fists clenching as she watched from the stands while Sasuke practically disappeared as he tried to get through the other boy's sand barrier. That little bastard had ripped off Lee's moves. Sure, there were differences here and there, but the main part of it was something Lee had worked hard for day in and day out for over a year. That Uchiha had taken one look at Lee's fighting style, and the next thing anybody knew, he was copying Lee at top form.

There was a roar of approval from the crowd as Sasuke launched his opponent into the air, and kicked him before he landed. There was an even louder roar when Sasuke got within his opponent's sand defense and attacked with a weak Raiton: Jibashi. TenTen didn't join in. She now knew exactly why her father had called the Uchiha a thief without any sort of admiration when he did so. Stealing from the enemy was acceptable, even admirable in many cases. Stealing from your comrades the way Sasuke had stolen from Lee and Gai-sensei was not.

&!&!&!&

Gaara called his sand back around him. The Uchiha, had driven him back and back and back. He had known when he had run into the boy during a self guided tour of the village that he was someone who could validate his existence. He had been right. The Uchiha was strong, and crushing him would make this entire trip worthwhile. Mother would be tasting the boy's blood soon.

He knew that the others would be upset at him for jumping the gun slightly, but that was their problem. He had been prepping for this all day, and would be doing it anyway, so what did a few minutes here or there matter?

The Uchiha had been tricky, but as soon as he merged with Mother, the boy would be all out of tricks, and his insides would be outside for all the world to see before Mother gobbled them up, along with the rest of this village. Konoha would be Mother's playground, and its residents her sacrifices, except for the ramen stand owner Teuchi and his daughter, and maybe that blond boy Naruto.

&!&!&!&

Orochimaru barely refrained from licking his lips as he watched the Uchiha boy fight. That act of "Cowardice" back in the forest had apparently been pragmatism, which was a useful trait to possess. Even without his seal giving the boy strength, he was strong. Sasuke was strong, and he was fast. He was what he wanted in a vessel, and during the confusion of the battle, Sasuke would be taken to become his. Had Sasuke not proven himself, he would have been taken to where he could be rather publicly and messily executed in order to lower morale amongst any survivors that might get ideas.

He bit back a groan of annoyance when he saw that Gaara was starting to transform before the signal. The bloodthirsty brat was apparently far too eager for the battle to begin. Oh well, it wasn't as if it would ruin his plans or anything. Konoha was as good as destroyed.

As Gaara sat in his cocoon of sand, Sasuke made his way up the wall of the arena where he stood preparing something. This part of the fight was boring. He hated it when things weren't moving. As he was about to give the signal, if only to end the monotony since Gaara's transformation would take a while, he heard a familiar chirping noise.

Little Kakashi had taught him _that _jutsu? Well, it looked like things were going to get interesting. He would sit back and watch this.

As the sound of birds rose to a crescendo, the Uchiha boy raced down the wall towards the sand ball that contained the Ichibi's Jinchuriki, leaving a line of destruction behind him. The Chidori could cut through steel. Concrete and earth were nothing to it, and didn't slow it down one iota. Practically the instant the boy started down the wall, his arm was through Gaara's sphere, and based on the sounds coming from inside, he had gotten something, but had failed to kill Gaara who tried to hold his arm in possibly in order to rip it off. Sasuke managed to free his arm, and a monstrous spiked thing that could be a paw or a tail shot out of the hole that Sasuke had made in Gaara's protective sphere, and attacked the boy.

He waited for the rest of the transformation, but it didn't happen. The ball of sand disintegrated instead. It seemed that Sasuke had managed to tire Gaara out and get him to use the Chakra necessary for the transformation.

Oh well. He'd deal with Gaara later. Now, he'd be giving the signal.

He raced to the railing and launched the smoke canister that would cover his kidnapping of his former sensei, as well as signal the start of the invasion. Everything was now in motion. That was good.

He hated it when things were still...

&!&!&!&

_"...unexpected cloud of smoke in the Kage box...and...and...feathers?...Zzzzzzzz...__**Wake up stupid! **__Owww...Huh? What? There seems to be some sort of barrier on the roof above the Kage box, and the Hokage and the Kazekage are in the middle of it. Hokage-sama appears to be the Kazekage's captive. One of the ANBU has moved to assist and is now rolling down the roof in flames..."_

Mizuko groaned and slammed his head into the bar. Why? Why? Why had the Kazekage decided to start a war now of all times? Thanks to his untimely assassination attempt, he was now out a hundred thousand Ryo, as the Third phase had apparently been stopped before the tournament could be completed, and Uzumaki Naruto had only won one match instead of all of them. Of all the times this could have happened...

"Bad luck man." One of the bar patrons said, a bar patron who was out some money as well, since the phase had "Ended in an invasion prior to the completion of the finals" which was a legitimate bet that someone who had bet that every Chunin Exam had finally made a killing off of.

Bad luck? Bad luck? That had been all his available money until his leg healed and he was able to take missions again in six weeks. Thanks to that stupid Kazekage, he was going to be forced to survive on field rations.

&!&!&!&

_"...has apparently gone after the Suna Genin who have taken the opportunity to make their escape...a small group of the other competitors, have gone out a hole in the wall created by Maito Gai, presumably to assist in dealing with the invasion we are now receiving reports of from the Eastern Wall..."_

Haku found himself biting his nails, which was a nervous habit he rarely indulged in. He was several days travel away, and there was nothing he could do to aid Naruto who had been responsible for his and Zabuza's new lease on life. Had Naruto not gotten the citizens of Wave, and later the Hokage himself to spare them, they would have been long dead before Mei-sama had become Mizukage. He had little doubt that Naruto was amongst the small group who had gone out to help save their village, as he wasn't the sort of coward who would hang back when others were in danger. He hoped that he would make it out of this battle alive.

"The Jinchuriki brat'll be fine." Zabuza-sama said, accurately guessing his fears as always, and trying to allay them even though he seemed slightly uncertain himself.

Haku smiled. He would trust in Zabuza-sama, and he would trust in Naruto. Naruto would make it through this, and knowing him, he would probably save the day while doing so.

&!&!&!&

_"...apparently isn't the Kazekage, but rather the missing Nin Orochimaru, who is one of the legendary Sannin who had been the Hokage's students. Hokage-sama has engaged him in battle, starting off with a Tile Shuriken Jutsu..."_

The cheering of the Suna and the Iwa nin who had stayed to listen to Sasuke's match had been silenced by a few well placed kunai moments earlier, much to the surprise of one Hoshigaki Kisame who had never seen Itachi kill anyone he didn't feel he had to. He had told Kisame that it had been because they had been giving him a headache, but he suspected that Kisame knew otherwise.

Despite his exile, he was still loyal to Konoha, and his little brother. Both were in danger now, and there was nothing he could do about it but sit and listen as the battle which was a day's journey from here unfolded. He would be praying that both Sasuke and his village survived. If one or the other fell in this battle, there would be hell to pay.

He was usually a pacifist, but he had killed before, and would kill again if anything happened to Sasuke. If Sasuke died, the rivers would run red with the blood of every last ninja from Suna and the new village Oto, and Orochimaru would be staked out for the carrion crows to feed on.


	30. Chunin Exams: Gaara

As she, Naruto, Pakkun, and Shikamaru who had eventually left their group in order to delay their pursuers ran through the forest, Sakura found a silent prayer of hope that they would make it in time running repeatedly throuhgh her head like a mantra. Sasuke had gone tearing out of the arena after the trio of Genin from Suna, and Kakashi had ordered them to go and retrieve him before he got into any trouble he couldn't handle.

An invasion like this was just the sort of perfect opportunity to kidnap Sasuke for any one of a wide variety of reasons. Naruto had pointed out the risk to her a few months ago, and she now found herself slightly worrying about her classmates which were still under the effects of the Genjutsu that had been cast over the entire arena who were the offspring of the heads of their clans. Hyuuga Hinata was especially vulnerable since she hadn't entirely recovered from her fight with Neji during the preliminaries.

For all she knew, the three fleeing Genin had been bait in a larger trap, and for some reason the Proctor had had Sasuke take it.

Eventually she had heard a very familiar sound, a sound she had first heard on the bridge in wave, the sound of a multitude of chirping, shrieking birds. Sasuke was still alive. She had gotten there in time.

Sasuke was exhausted and/or wounded and unable to move however. The boy named Gaara who looked more like a monstrous animal than a human being now moved in to attack. Naruto blocked him. When Gaara went to attack again, she blocked him despite the fact that she was still injured from her fight in the arena and wasn't in top form at the moment.

She was easily swept aside and slammed into a tree. As she lost consciousness all she could think was: _I failed..._

&!&!&!&

Sasuke gasped as a new pain from his ribs stabbed him. Apparently, at least one of them had cracked. His opponent was completely insane, and rapidly turning into a monster, just like...Just like Naruto had that one time on the bridge.

He had chased Gaara all the way from the arena, almost being stopped twice, once by Temari who had been slowed down by the injuries that Sakura had given her, and once by Kankuro who had ended up fighting Aburame Shino who had apparently been somewhat peeved by the fact that the invasion had robbed him of his chance at fighting the older boy in the quarterfinals as he was supposed to. In the end, they had come to this point where Gaara had started turning into a monster, and ranting about him being his prey since they had the same cold, lonely, murderous eyes.

Gaara obviously had had one of the Biju sealed into him the way Naruto had. Turning it loose like this obviously drove him insane the way it had Naruto that day on the bridge. As the half-human monstrosity spoke of loving and only fighting for oneself, he powered a third Chidori, aware of the possible consequences.

_He stood with Kakashi in front of a stone with two holes blasted in it._

_"Two seems to be your current limit." Kakashi casually remarked. "If you try for three, it won't work properly, and it will drain all your Chakra, as it is a very Chakra intensive jutsu, especially because you have to keep your Sharingan activated as well, which puts and additional drain on your Chakra. If you try to force it too much, you could die."_

_He stood there panting, as he tried to catch his breath. He was well aware of the probable consequences of Chakra Exhaustion. He'd sat through the lectures the same as everyone else, at the Academy, and had sat through several lectures at home before the Massacre._

_"You'll most likely try it anyway considering what an arrogant brat you are, which is a pity." Kakashi said. "With the way things are now, very few would mourn your passing."_

He would not die here at the claws of this bloodthirsty monster however. He had been left alive in order to avenge his clan, and he would not die before he did so. He leapt into the air at the same time Gaara did, as he flew through the air, the Chidori that had gathered in his hand fizzled and began to die. It had been just enough to save him from death by Gaara's sand claws however, he was weak and could barely move.

Gaara leaped to attack him again, and was batted away by something that was dark orange and brown topped with yellow. Gaara moved to attack him again, but was blocked by Sakura. Gaara swept her aside, but instead of landing a killing blow, he pinned her to the tree they were in, looking extremely pained as he did so.

"I won't allow you to hurt my teammates!" That Boy yelled as he moved in to defend him and Sakura who looked like she had lost consciousness from the monstrous Gaara's attack.

_"Do you know why few would mourn your passing if you died now?" Kakashi asked from the other side of the campfire after the day's training had ended._

_"From your silence, I guess the answer is no." Kakashi said a few moments later._

_"It's because you're an arrogant and ungrateful bastard, like I used to be when I was your age, but worse." Kakashi continued as he poked the fire. "People have tried to be there for you, but you threw their kindness back in their faces every time, and took everything they gave you as if you were entitled to it, never once being grateful for what you had been given, even after people had given you things that were most precious to them."_

_"If you even knew the number of people who had sacrificed their lives so you could sit here scowling at your dinner..." Kakashi said as he took a bite of whatever the hell it was he'd just finished cooking and had dished out on a pair of plates a few minutes earlier. "Who am I kidding? You wouldn't care."_

While he sat there unable to move or do anything, Sakura had risked her life to protect him, and now Naruto was engaged in a battle between demons in order to protect him and Sakura. While it was likely that the boy who contained the strongest of the Biju would survive, Sakura could have quite easily died when she had stood between him and Gaara. It was only due to a whim of Gaara's that she was alive and unconscious.

&!&!&!&

As Naruto looked into the empty depths of his opponent's eyes and listened to him talk of fighting only for oneself and loving only oneself, he found himself wondering if this monster before him could have been him. He knew that letting the demon out like this boy seemed to have done if his words and transformation were any indication drove even the sanest people insane, but he didn't think that Gaara was stable to start with considering the fear with which his comrades regarded him.

There had been a time when he had gone almost completely mad from the loneliness. There had been a time when he had come close to snapping, a time when he had almost become the monster Sakura had feared he was when she had first joined Team 7. There had been a time when he had stood there looking at people and imagined stabbing them if only so that cold look in their eyes would change for a second, and they would see him, and acknowledge him.

Before Iruka, his pranks had started to get even more vicious with each passing month. If Iruka had remained the way he had in the beginning, if his first team hadn't acknowledged him, and Tetsuo-sensei hadn't warmed up to him, if he hadn't met Kakashi, would he be the way this boy was now, a cold, lonely killer who seemed to enjoy the act if only because of the acknowledgement he got from it?

He would do what he had to to make sure that his opponent didn't harm his comrades or anyone else in Konoha, if he had to kill him, he would. He didn't like killing, and the thought of killing someone he had been ready to call friend before this had happened sickened him, but he would do what was necessary, and it was starting to look like the only option for stopping the other Jinchuriki.

His absolute least favorite fight wasn't a straight up fight without any prior preparation, it was fighting an opponent you could understand and see yourself in. Gaara had wanted love, never received it, and finally went mad because of it. He'd teetered on the brink himself, as the only person who even seemed to care for him had never had time for him but, Iruka-sensei had pulled him back. Iruka-Sensei had then handed him over to his first team who pulled him even further from the edge. There had never been anyone to pull Gaara away from the edge, just people who pushed him closer until he fell off.

&!&!&!&

Gaara growled in frustration at the one who wouldn't quit, wouldn't die, and constantly put his life on the line for his comrades instead of himself. He had wanted to spare the other boy who had treated him nicely and introduced him to Teuchi-san, but he was becoming a threat to his existence, and he had to destroy every threat to his existence before they destroyed him.

The other boy pushed him and battered him back and back and back with thraps and blows and every dirty trick in the book until he'd been forced to subsume his will to that of Shukaku. When he found himself awakened by a powerful blow, he found himself looking into a pair of red slit-pupiled eyes. He heard a growl as a set of claws descended to end his existence.

"No!" his opponent said when his claws were a half inch away from his throat. "No. My mother trusted me. The Yondaime trusted me. Iruka-sensei, Tetsuo-sensei, Morishita-san, Kakashi, Sakura-san, and Sasuke trust me. I can't. I won't. Not again. Never again."

As the claws, and the odd markings on the blond boy's face receded and his eyes returned to blue, some things started to make a sick sort of sense, such as the cold glares that had been directed at the kind boy by a large number of the villagers. Naruto was like him, but he couldn't be...He couldn't be...

How could a monster such as him be so kind, so caring, so willing to risk his life for others?

He was still wondering that when the fight ended and he found himself falling to the ground alongside his opponent as Shukaku's form dissolved around him, neither able to fight any longer, much less check their landing. Even then, after they had hit the ground, Naruto had forced himself to move forward, intent on saving his comrade who had been pinned to a tree by his sand earlier. If their respective teammates hadn't separated them, and Temari and Kankuro hadn't carried him off, he had no doubt that Naruto would have done what it took, even if it killed him. Naruto, who had been willing to risk everything for others, who had cared for others instead of only for himself, had proven the stronger of the two, and it hadn't been because he possessed the stronger demon, whichever one it was.

It was plainly obvious that people hated Naruto and feared him, but he had somehow managed to find people who cared for him as well. Would he find such people one day? He may have found a few before but, would they still be there after what he had done?

"I'm sorry." he said, apologizing to everyone he hurt, including the brother and sister who were carrying him to safety despite the number of times he had threatened to kill them. It was more than likely far too late though, and in any number of cases it was most definitely far too late.

In the future, he would have to do his best not to hurt anyone else, and hope that someone would come and fill that aching emptiness one day, someone like Naruto.


	31. Tsunade Retrieval: Kage Funeral

Naruto walked to the roof of the Hokage Tower where the Sandaime's funeral would be taking place alone, doing his best to ignore the fact that even people who would say hello to him a few days ago were skirting him as if they were afraid. He knew why though. When he received the news that the Old Man was dead shortly after the battle ended, he had completely lost it. Fortunately, he had managed to cling to what little sanity he could until he'd made it a little ways outside the village. While he was out there, he'd almost completely destroyed about a good square mile of forest before he collapsed.

He had wanted to go to both Suna and Oto and tear every last one of those ninja apart, including Gaara and his teammates who had smiled to his face and plotted war behind his back. Then, last night the news came in first via messenger hawk, then via a runner who had willingly undergone interrogation, news that left him shocked and confused when he'd read the special edition of that morning's paper.

Suna had surrendered to Konoha unconditionally, and was willing to meet any demands that Konoha made. They claimed that they had been tricked into invading, and that they had the evidence to prove it. Apparently, the Yondaime Kazekage had been murdered by Orochimaru who had impersonated him during the Chunin exams and quite likely for a long time before. According to the account that had been given, the Yondaime Kazekage had gone to a negotiation meeting with Orochimaru a couple months ago, and had been killed because he had given Orochimaru an answer he hadn't liked.

As he walked to the Tower and the funeral service for the fallen which had included the Hokage amidst a sea of mourners all dressed in black as he was, he found himself recalling parts of the oath he had proudly given along with the members of the other graduating teams that year while standing next to his teammates in the Hokage's office on the day he had officially become a Shinobi of Konoha.

_"...Hereby swear to serve and protect the Hokage, the village of Konoha, and the land of Fire...Swear to follow the orders given to me to the best of my abilities...If I am called up in a time of war, I will serve without reservations..."_

Undoubtedly, every last one of the ninja of Suna had given a similar oath before the Kazekage the day they became Genin. It had been because of that oath that most of them had fought, and because of that oath that many of them had died.

The bastard who had killed the Hokage had stolen the service and the lives of those ninja. Not only that, but that bastard had caused the death of a large number of Konoha's Citizens, Shinobi and Civilian alike. He wasn't sure if he'd ever be friends with Gaara and his teammates after the way they had betrayed him, but he would save his true hatred for the bastard who had killed the Hokage, Orochimaru.

He was beginning to be able to understand Sasuke's drive to be an avenger a little bit. There was someone he too would kill without fail. If it took one year or a hundred to become strong enough, he would kill Orochimaru.

&!&!&!&

Itachi knew that Kisame more than likely suspected that he was up to something. He'd left their camp so early that morning that it was practically night. When he had reached Otafuku Gai, he had rented a room for a couple of hours, and underwent something of a transformation. He knew better than to use Genjutsu today because it would be spotted immediately where he was going.

Looking in the mirror now, he barely recognized himself. Thanks to a temporary dye that took a special solution to wash out, his hair was a medium brown, his eyes were hazel thanks to contacts, and his skin was slightly darker thanks to a pigment enhancer. Finally, there was one last thing to do. He pulled off his usual clothing, and put on the outfit he'd managed to acquire in the small town that had a large number of businesses that were open at all hours due to its proximity to a Shinobi village.

He'd had an outfit that was nearly identical to the one he was putting on a while back, but he'd long since outgrown it. With a final pull on the unadorned black top to smooth out any wrinkles, he was fully dressed. He hadn't worn clothes like these in nearly five years, and the last time he did so had been while quietly hiding in a tree, silently praying that nobody would notice him since that would force him to defend himself, while also hoping that someone would spot him and kill him.

After one last check in the mirror, he was finally ready to go. He turned towards the open window and headed out towards Konoha which still held his loyalty if only because of all he had sacrificed for it, and the funeral of a man that he both loved and hated.

&!&!&!&

Tobi popped off his mask and became Madara once more. Madara pulled off his Akatsuki cloak and donned the outfit he had purchased before he'd checked in at the inn he was staying at the night before. With a little white in his hair, and a change to his walk, he was no longer Madara, but just another old civilian who may or may not have been a retired shinobi.

He'd promised Itachi he would stay away from Konoha, and he was usually a man of his word - for as long as the person he'd given his word to was alive at least - no matter how stupid he thought the promise he made was, he generally kept it. He hadn't missed one of these before however, and wasn't going to miss this one now. As long as he didn't cause any mischief, nobody would need to know that he hadn't entirely kept his promise this time.

As he stepped outside the inn and joined the parade of mourners that wandered past, he adopted an appropriately solemn expression. Internally however, he was dancing a little jig. With the Sandaime gone, that was four Hokages dead during his lifetime, and after today, he would have attended all of their funerals.

&!&!&

Danzo sighed as he carefully arranged his clothing. Unlike the other two Council members who had also been Sarutobi's teammates and fellow students under the Shodaime and Nidaime, he would not be standing at the front giving the Eulogy. He would be standing at the back, in the shadows where he belonged instead.

He had almost been tempted to skip this altogether. He had both loved and hated Sarutobi, and for a long time that hatred had come to eclipse their friendship. He'd not seen eye to eye with the man on a great many issues over the past several decades, and believed that the man had ruled Konoha with too soft a touch, and had been too soft on the other countries, and given away far more than Konoha could afford in the hope of maintaining peace as well. It had been because of this that people had thought Konoha weak enough to invade, and finally did so.

Of the two of them, Sarutobi had always been just the tiniest bit faster, smarter, stronger, and better all around. He had struggled long and hard to catch up only to fall further and further behind. It had been that Sarutobi, the one who had offered to sacrifice himself while he was still working up the courage to do so, the one who had been Hokage that he had hated.

The Sarutobi that he used to run around Konoha and play with as a child, the Sarutobi who had sworn that they would be friends forever and did his best to keep that promise no matter how difficult he'd made it had been the Sarutobi he had loved. It was for that Sarutobi that he was attending this funeral.

Once everything was finally in order, he grabbed his cane and headed out to the funeral of the last of his friends.

&!&!&!&

In Suna, a different funeral was taking place. While it too was for a Kage, it was for the Kazekage. As Baki stood in the crowd and waited for Chiyo who stood next to the Yondaime Kazekage's three stony-faced children who stoically stood out in the hot sun dressed completely in black to start the eulogy, he found himself wondering what his former Kage's reaction would have been if he ever learned that his funeral had been scheduled to start ten minutes after the Hokage's.

The man who had little to no love for the Sandaime Hokage would probably have taken it as an insult. He could practically see the man who had appointed him to the position of Jounin Instructor to his three children swelling in outrage. While the Yondaime had been rather cold to those around him, he had deeply cared for his village and was willing to sacrifice anything and everything for it, and that had been why he and many others had been willing to follow him without question.

Had he or someone else for that matter questioned just once, then maybe they would have realized that their Kazekage had been replaced by an impostor. The Yondaime tended to get upset when his decisions were questioned, and tended to behave in a certain manner when he was upset, with differing reactions depending on exactly how pissed he was. The only person he'd seen come close to imitating the Yondaime when he'd had his feathers ruffled was Gaara oddly enough. But then again, Gaara was his father's spitting image despite his odd coloring which was undoubtedly due to Shukaku's influence, so that shouldn't really be a surprise.

After what seemed like an eternity, Chiyo finally began to speak. Getting the Honored Grandmother Chiyo to give the eulogy had been quite the accomplishment for whoever managed it, considering the fact that Chiyo and her brother had sworn to stay out of the village affairs when they had retired over a decade ago.

&!&!&!&

Temari watched her youngest brother out of the corner of her eye. Gaara had been behaving strangely since the failed invasion of Konoha, and she wasn't sure how she should react. He had been rather quiet on the run back to Suna, and had gone off on his own when they had learned of their father's death, only returning this morning in time for the funeral. In the time that he had been there, he had never once threatened to kill them. Usually there would be at least three death threats a day, and one could generally gauge his mood by the number of death threats or actual deaths he handed out.

It was strange seeing him standing there alongside them. Up until they had been grouped together onto a Genin team, Gaara had been kept separate from them. She had caught a few glimpses of Gaara here and there while he was wandering about the village and saw him on occasion when she had stopped to visit uncle Yashamaru before then, but that had been about it as far as contact had been concerned.

"...Was a...er, father of three fine shinobi..." Chiyo-obaasama said, as the eulogy that she had only been half listening to droned on. It seemed that Chiyo hadn't been willing to stretch the truth so far as to say that her father had been a loving father. He hadn't. He'd been cold, he'd been distant, and he'd sacrificed their mother in order to seal a demon inside their younger brother.

He'd been her father however, and she had loved him. She would also miss him greatly now that he was gone.

&!&!&!&

The Sandaime Tsuchikage Oonoki listened almost sadly as an era ended. Though he shouldn't have, he had had the Yondaime Kazekage's funeral taped so he could listen to it later. He had known the Sandaime Hokage for far longer than he'd known the youngster in the Kazekage's robes, and had faced him on the field of battle on a few occasions. In a choice of whose funeral to listen to live, there was no contest. It had been Suna's fault for scheduling their Kage's funeral on the same day as that of the Hokage.

With The Professor's passing, Iwa was now the only village that was ruled by a Sandaime Kage. The other villages were now on Yondaimes, or Godaimes, and soon, when two names were selected and announced, the majority of the five major villages of the Elemental Countries would be ruled by a Godaime Kage.

It seemed as if the world was rapidly leaving him behind.

&!&!&!&

The Yondaime Raikage A sat at his desk flipping between two radio stations, hoping that he didn't miss anything important on the other station each time he did. Much to his irritation, Konoha and Suna had scheduled their Kages' funerals for the same day at the same time. Since radios came into use, it was expected that if a Kage could not attend the funeral of another Kage for whatever reason such as little to no advanced notice as was often the case since Kages rarely died of natural causes, they would listen to it on the radio, as important events in Hidden Villages were almost never televised due to the amount of information on village layout that enemies could gain amongst other things. It was an unwritten rule, but it was there.

He half expects that diplomats from either village will comment on things said during the funerals to test and see if he'd actually been listening in a morbid imitation of a pop quiz, and he doesn't want to get the answers wrong. He already has something of a reputation for being a slightly uncouth meathead, and he doesn't need something like that adding to it.

&!&!&!&

Zabuza seemingly casually leaned against his wife's desk as she sat listening to the broadcasts that were coming in from a pair of radios that had been set up. In addition to being his wife's adviser, he was her primary bodyguard as well. He had little to no interest in listening to what was coming in over the radios as he had had very little interest in either the Sandaime Hokage or the Yondaime Kazekage, and didn't particularly care to listen to a couple of pompous elderly windbags sing their praises.

The Sandaime Hokage's funeral however was slightly more interesting since it wasn't solely about the Sandaime Hokage, but was a combined funeral for all who had died during the invasion that had disrupted the Chunin Exams.

Eventually, the two funerals were over, and Mei turned off both radios before turning back to her work. There was never much time for mourning the dead in Kirigakure, especially for someone like the Mizukage. There was far too much that needed to be done for the living.


	32. Tsunade Retrieval: Godaime Hokage?

Danzo snorted from his hiding spot as Jiraiya reacted to his fellow Councilmembers' offer exactly how he'd predicted he would. He knew that Jiraiya's answer wouldn't have been half as polite as it had been if he'd been there alongside Sarutobi's teammates while they made the offer. As it was, the man's refusal was somewhat rude as he seemed far more interested in staring at the hot springs than he was in being offered the position of Godaime Hokage. Jiraiya barely tolerated Koharu and Homura, and didn't tolerate him at all. There had been a time that Jiraiya had tolerated him, but after a run in with one of the ROOT agents in which Jiraiya had been forced to kill the "kid", that tolerance had rapidly melted away like snow on a hot summer day.

It seemed that Tsunade would be the new Hokage despite the fact that she'd abandoned Konoha more than a decade ago. He had no doubt that Jiraiya would somehow make this so even if he had to forcibly drag the legendary "Sitting Duck" all the way back to Konoha and chain her to the Hokage's desk in order to escape the position himself. It was just as well, since Tsunade was the more responsible of the two, if only marginally. The upside to this situation though was that he would be able to slip far more past Tsunade then he would Jiraiya.

Jiraiya's choice of traveling companion was all too predictable as well. He'd seen the papers making the boy his apprentice shortly after they'd hit the Hokage's desk. The man couldn't not bring the boy along. That, and since the man preferred traveling alone, it was fully expected that he would reject a team of ninja out of hand. It wasn't as if the man wasn't capable of dealing with any difficulty that cropped up along the way.

Now that that matter was settled, and that Jiraiya actually accepting the position of Godaime Hokage - as there was a small possibility of him doing so - hadn't happened, it was time to get ready for the arrival of his new and most likely only marginally willing Hokage.

&!&!&!&

Tenzo whistled as he saw the full devastation that had been caused by the Kyuubi Jinchuriki's rampage. You could build a whole damn town complete with a couple outlying farms in the clearing the boy had created in what had once been a dense forest. Fortunately for Konoha, that clearing hadn't been swept through the middle of the village.

People were understandably afraid of the power the boy wielded. Some of the more superstitious people who believed that Naruto was the demon he contained had come to believe that the Sandaime had placed some sort of spell on the boy that had worn off when he passed. Others had come to believe that the Yondaime's seal had broken, and in a way, they were right. The seal was indeed weakening, and would likely weaken even further every time the boy brought out the Kyuubi's power, but that was apparently intended to happen, considering how all of the other Jinchuriki tended to merge with their Biju during battle the way the Suna Jinchuriki had merged with Shukaku. The only question was if Naruto would be able to control that power or if it would control him.

He had gotten the information that backed up his assumptions about Naruto's seal when he'd done research on the Biju in order to learn how to contain and control them with the power he had gotten from Orochimaru's experiments with the Shodai Hokage's DNA.

That was a matter for another day however. Right now, it was time to get to work.

"Mokuton: Mori no Jutsu!" he yelled as he slapped his hands against the ground and caused several dozen trees to grow. This was only a small start however, and it would take him a while to finish, especially since he'd be growing houses in Konoha as well.

As for how he himself felt about Naruto's power, it was annoyance at the amount of work the boy had made for him in the space of a single afternoon.

&!&!&!&

Baki briefly wondered what it had been that had caused Gaara to run for the toilet. One second the boy was studying a couple of books, and the next he was running for the bathroom. When he'd pressed his ear to the door, he hadn't heard the boy vomiting as he half expected him to be, but instead it sounded as if he'd been...crying? Maybe not crying, but at the very least, he sounded rather upset, and not in the "Stop annoying me or I'll kill you" way.

After his father's funeral, Gaara had demanded several books on Konoha history and every Bingo Book that contained entries with the name Uzumaki in them. Based on the unusual requests, he guessed that the boy was doing research on the boy who had defeated him, which was rather unusual. But then again, since Gaara had never been defeated before, the whole situation was unusual.

Moving over to the desk to see exactly what it could have been that had upset the boy so badly, he noted that only two books were open out of a stack of thirty. One was a rather dated Bingo Book from sometime during the Third Shinobi World War, and the other was a recent Konoha Ninja Academy history textbook. The Academy textbook was opened to a page that contained a close-up view of the Yondaime Hokage which looked like his last official photograph before he was appointed to the position. The Bingo Book was open to an entry for one Uzumaki Kushina nicknamed the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero.

The Uzumaki woman was very attractive, and looked familiar for some reason. Maybe he'd faced her in battle when he was a Genin or during his early days as a Chunin...

Funny, it looked as if Gaara had traced three lines on each of her cheeks with the pencil that he'd been using to take notes...

Of course...If you rounded out the chin a little bit, and changed the hair and eye color from red and gray to blond and blue, and gave her a bit of a tan, she'd practically be the spitting image of the Uzumaki boy.

Why would that upset Gaara though?

No, it wasn't just that. Two books were open. One to the picture of a woman from whom Gaara's opponent had gained his looks and the other to the picture of a man who now that he thought about it had blond hair, blue eyes, and a somewhat rounded chin.

Oh freaking hell!

&!&!&!&

Sakura had been eating a quick lunch after helping her mother put things in order all that morning when Sasuke showed up out of the blue. It had been a task that had taken several days of working off and on. From the looks of things when they'd gotten home, some of the enemy ninja had trashed their place for the heck of it, and some Konoha ninja had caught them in the act at some point. Fortunately, they hadn't been stuck with the task of dragging out the corpses of enemy ninja out of their home as one of their neighbors down the street had had to do.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in surprise. Sasuke never showed up at her place, and since she'd spent the entire morning repainting the living room to cover the scorch marks from what looked to have been a battle that had taken place with one ninja standing on the now destroyed sofa and the other on the armchair, she hadn't had the time to fix her hair, much less dress herself properly.

"I..." Sasuke said, then paused. "I wanted to thank you."

"For what?" she asked, somewhat startled. Sasuke had rarely if ever thanked her before.

"For standing between me and Gaara during the invasion." Sasuke replied.

"You don't need to thank me." she replied. "You're my teammate, and that's what teammates do for each-other."

Sasuke looked startled at this statement for some reason. She didn't know why though. If it had been her that was being attacked, Sasuke would have instantly leapt to her aid, right?

&!&!&!&

Itachi sighed as he settled into his seat at what had been his favorite tea shop when he'd still been living in Konoha. He and Kisame had arrived early that morning and had wandered around the village "Looking for the Kyuubi Jinchuriki". In reality Kisame had been looking - either that or he took the opportunity of his partner's absence to play hooky - and he had gone off to give his ultimatum to the Council. Sasuke would be safe for a while longer.

He had little doubt that Naruto would show up at his apartment at some point that day. He and Kisame could ambush him there if he couldn't find any way to get out of this. He was going to spend the rest of the day trying to "find out where Naruto lives" despite the fact that he was almost a hundred percent certain that the boy was in the same apartment he had been in since before he'd left the village. He knew where it was because he had been on patrol in that neighborhood before and had nearly gotten tagged by a water balloon that had somehow been filled with rotten eggs.

He had little doubt that the balloon had been intended for the rather unpleasant ANBU that usually patrolled the area during that shift.

As he and Kisame sipped their tea and prepared to eat their order of dango, three shinobi that he'd rather not face showed up. Asuma and Kurenai who had apparently come on a date, and Kakashi who had come to get some offerings for Obito-nii, and was waiting for Sasuke. When Sasuke showed up, he and Kisame took the opportunity of the distraction he presented to vanish.

As he hid on the roof of the teahouse and waited for the shinobi to go off in pursuit of him and his partner, he heard Sasuke say "Why aren't you bringing Naruto?" and Kakashi reply "Because if Naruto hasn't left already, he will shortly be leaving the village to go on a trip with Jiraiya.".

Crap. That just made things a bit more complicated.

&!&!&!&

Naruto had been about to go to Ichiraku Ramen and get lunch when Jiraiya had shown up and started talking some nonsense about going on a trip. At first he couldn't believe what he was hearing, and was almost convinced that he was having an auditory hallucination or that someone had cast a prank Genjutsu on him. What the white haired pervert was saying had to be the most irresponsible thing he had ever heard. There was no way in hell that he would be going off and playing hooky with this guy when he had responsibilities here, and he most definitely did not owe the man for teaching him how to summon toads even if Gamabunta may have saved his life during that battle with Gaara.

"Let me get this straight." he said to the white haired pervert. "Konoha's in shambles, and we're down by about half our ninja force due to all of the dead and injured, and you want me to go with you while you "research" some woman?"

"That about sums it up, yes." Jiraiya said smiling.

"How about a screw and a you, and a I'm getting back to work." he said as he turned to leave.

On his way down the alley, he caught something that had been aimed at his head. When he examined the object, he found that it was what looked like a mission scroll.

"What's this?" he asked.

"Well, I hadn't wanted to make it official, but I will if I have to." Jiraiya said. "You're going with me whether you like it or not."

"On whose authority?" he asked, not even bothering to open the scroll that could easily be a fake considering the reputed sealing skills of the man standing before him.

"That of Konoha's full Emergency Council." Jiraiya replied.

Great. It seemed that they wanted him gone, at least temporarily. Well, it wasn't like it wasn't his fault. Losing control and setting the damn Kyuubi loose like that naturally had its consequences, and being dragged out of town for who knew how long by the white haired pervert was obviously one of them, though he didn't think he was the best person to be with considering the fact that he'd actually tried to get him to use the Kyuubi's chakra before.

"I'll go and pack." he snarled.

"Cheer up." Jiraiya called after him as he walked off. "It's not going to be that bad. Besides, I plan on teaching you a thing or two while we're on the road."

He made his way to his apartment, and opened the scroll when he got there so he had a clear idea of what he should be packing. Apparently, he was being sent on a B ranked mission to...Retrieve the Godaime Hokage?


	33. Tsunade Retrieval: Itachi

Naruto sighed as he trailed behind the white haired pervert that he could be spending a long while with considering the fact that the man didn't actually know where the new Godaime Hokage was at the moment, and would have to hunt her down. When a shinobi of a Sannin's caliber didn't want to be found...Well, at least, they had a Sannin tracking her.

As he trailed behind his team leader on a team that consisted of two people - him and the white haired pervert - he wondered why the man hadn't told him that they were going to retrieve the Godaime in the first place, and why he had pretended to be going off to party while Konoha was in shambles. After a while, he realized that it was because they could have been overheard, quite possibly by someone who could innocently let the information slip to the wrong person. If their enemies in Otogakure who had yet to make a second attack - or any other enemies for that matter - got this information, they could send out a team to assassinate their new Hokage before she reached Konoha, further weakening the village as the next candidate would not be as strong as her.

The woman Tsunade whom his brief research indicated was a healer of great renown had been selected because she was the best for the job, both politically, and in matters of strength. As the granddaughter of the Shodaime and student of the Sandaime, she would have almost universal appeal amongst the villagers. If something happened to her, the position would more than likely be given to the white haired pervert, since he was both a student of the Sandaime, and the teacher of the Yondaime. That would be an unmitigated disaster, because he was certain that the man's irresponsible behavior was not entirely a charade. An irresponsible Hokage was worse than no Hokage at all.

&!&!&!&

Itachi suppressed an exasperated sigh. They had not managed to get out of the village before Asuma, and Kurenai had caught up to them. Kisame was just itching for a fight, and he wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to hold him back. After introductions were made, and he looked into the eyes of his former comrades only to see that they wanted him dead, the fight was met, and he found himself involved in a small Genjutsu battle with Kurenai. He merely turned the woman's Genjutsu around on her, when even without the Mangekyo he could have done so much worse. Despite all appearances, he was still loyal to Konoha, and the shinobi of Konoha were still his comrades. He didn't want to kill them if he didn't have to.

The battle continued for a little while, and eventually Kakashi showed up and pulled Kurenai out of a tight spot. He felt slightly sick at turning the Tsukuyomi against his former captain, but it was better that the man learn of it now from him rather than face Madara one day with no knowledge of its existence. While in the world of the Tsukuyomi, he couldn't go easy on the man even though he wanted to. If Kakashi suspected anything were up, he could do something to blow his cover.

Kakashi would survive though, and wake up eventually after this was over. Sasuke had managed to do so without too much damage. But, then again, children's minds were far more resilient than those of adults.

When Maito Gai and some brown haired Jounin who bore something of a resemblance to that bastard Danzo showed up, he knew that it was time to leave. He didn't need half of Konoha's remaining shinobi on his and Kisame's asses, especially now when the Akatsuki's hunt for the Jinchuriki was beginning.

Naruto was no longer in town so remaining was pointless.

&!&!&!&

Kisame growled as he and Itachi followed the host for the Kyuubi and his guard at a discreet distance. He'd been robbed of what could have been the fight of a lifetime. Him against one of the former Guardian Twelve, Konoha's legendary Green Beast, and whoever the hell that was who came and assisted them.

The fact that he didn't know who the brown haired guy was and whether or not he was strong niggled at him for a while as he and Itachi pursued their target, until he finally broke down and pulled out his Bingo Book. Barely paying any attention to the road, he flipped through the pages looking for either the correct picture or a description that matched.

Eventually, he found it near the back of the book and snorted with disgust when he did. The brown haired guy was a rather standard Konoha Jounin who only merited an entry in the book because of his skills as a con artist. There was a mention that he'd been using his Genin team in cons recently. One of the Genin on that team just so happened to be their target.

If the little brat thought he could trick them and flee, he would be getting a very unpleasant surprise. Come to think of it, there was no reason that he couldn't cut the boy's legs off the minute he was captured to prevent such things. The boy didn't need legs to survive, and would need to be held for a while anyways until the group could get enough practice in to synchronize the extraction process. The newest member Deidara lacked the necessary concentration skills to maintain the Jutsu for longer than an hour or so.

&!&!&!&

Asuma sighed as he disarmed the last of Kakashi's traps and dragged the unconscious man to his bed. He had briefly thought of bringing Kakashi to the hospital, but decided against it. No shinobi liked to wake up in the hospital, and the hospital was so swamped right now that it was best not to go there unless it was serious. He would bring him there though if he didn't awaken in a few hours.

Kurenai was commenting on the ingenuity of the traps surrounding Kakashi's door and windows. He had a feeling that Kakashi either hired the Uzumaki boy to do them or stole the boy's notes. One or two of them were rather effective classics that were meant to be noticed so one would become overconfident and miss the other traps until it was far too late.

Gai was looking somewhat nervous, but he understood. Kakashi had been Gai's best friend as well as his eternal rival since the two of them were children, and was naturally q1uite concerned about him. Kakashi and Gai never mentioned the best friend part, but it was obvious to anyone who watched their interactions. Gai had graduated the Academy a year and a half after Kakashi at the age of seven, and proven himself to almost be Kakashi's equal any number of times. People tended not to notice this however, as Gai had always looked and acted "like a loser". Many people had learned that Gai wasn't the loser he appeared to be the hard way after they'd had the shit beaten out of them by the "Gay looking weirdo in green".

As he sat discussing what had happened, and waiting for Kakashi to wake up, Kakashi's student Sasuke let himself into the man's apartment. From the look on the boy's face, it seemed that there actually was someone in Konoha that the boy cared about besides himself. He, Kurenai, and Gai remained quiet about Itachi. Who knew how the boy would react to discovering that his brother had returned, especially since the boy had mentioned swearing to kill his brother if he ever saw him again. It wouldn't do to lose the last of the Uchiha because they had let something slip and the child had gone off half-cocked believing he could defeat someone on Itachi's level.

From what little action he'd seen from Itachi during that fight, he could tell that the young man had truly earned his S-Class ranking in the Bingo Book. At the moment, Uchiha Sasuke was maybe ranked at a high C or perhaps a low B. While the boy had completed an A-ranked mission, that had been mainly due to Kakashi and an ungodly amount of luck.

As Sasuke was asking Kurenai about Kakashi's condition, Yamashiro Aoba completely blew it. He'd shown up and started asking about Itachi and his objectives at what had to be the absolute worst time. Next thing everyone knew, the Uchiha boy was running out the room, and he had a feeling that it wasn't to go and have a good cry.

"Someone should go after him." Kurenai said.

"Anyone feel like they're up to dragging a struggling Uchiha with an activated Sharingan back and holding him captive for however long it takes for him to calm down and the situation to blow over?" he asked.

Everyone looked at each-other waiting to see who would make the first move. That's what he'd thought. Things like this had been so much easier when there were other Uchiha around to deal with their wayward offspring.

&!&!&!&

Gai sighed. He'd drawn the short straw, and would now be hunting down a highly upset Uchiha who was more than likely heading straight towards the enemy. The enemy in this case was Uchiha Itachi, and some large blue guy who had come to Konoha to kidnap the Uzumaki boy. While he was reasonably certain of the Uchiha boy's intended destination, he did a quick check of the village to make sure the child hadn't run off to have a panic attack somewhere. After all, it wasn't entirely inconceivable that he would do so, considering the number Itachi had done on him when he was eight.

He barely suppressed a frustrated sigh when a quick interrogation of the Gate Guards had revealed that Sasuke had run out of town and down the road. Great. He knew that it wouldn't be as simple as crawling into whatever space the Uchiha child had holed himself up in and comforting the boy. Hopefully the child hadn't gotten too far in the head start he'd been given, and he would be able to catch up soon.

Uchiha were made for speed however, so things didn't look good in that area. A Uchiha who was desperate, and given the head-start Sasuke had been given could already be half way to Shukuba by now.

Well, if he failed to catch Sasuke in time, he would do five thousand sit-ups then five thousand push-ups while he waited for Kakashi to kill him.

&!&!&!&

That Man. That Man had been in Konoha. That Man had been in Konoha targeting his teammates. That Man had been in Konoha targeting his teammates, and he'd hurt Kakashi. That Man had been in Konoha targeting his teammates, he'd hurt Kakashi, and now he was going after Naruto.

When had Naruto become Naruto to him?

Naruto had left town with someone called Jiraiya on some sort of trip, and they didn't know Itachi was after them. He didn't entirely know why That Man was after them. All he knew was that That Man had taken out their family to test his abilities, and now he was going after his teammates. Was it to test his abilities as well? Kakashi was said to be at something approaching Kage level, and Naruto was incredibly powerful, especially when he called on the power of the Kyuubi.

Why come now though?

Both Naruto and Kakashi had the same amount of power that they had a month ago, six months ago, a year ago even. The only thing that was different was...Was that Konoha's security was at an all time low thanks to the invasion, making it easier to slip in and out of the village without being noticed. If you didn't want to be noticed however, why attempt to kidnap someone like Naruto whose absence would be quickly noticed despite the number of people who tried to pretend he didn't exist, much less start a battle with Hatake Kakashi in the middle of the village?

It didn't make sense. Nothing about That Man made sense however.

He would make it to Naruto in time and warn him before he faced That Man. Today, he would either kill That Man and avenge the Clan, or he would die. It was quite likely that he would die, and if he did, he would do anything in his power to take That Man down with him. Luck was a part of a shinobi's skill set, and no matter how powerful a ninja was, they could still be brought down by a lucky shot. He would do his best to make that shot.


	34. Tsunade Retrieval: Turning Point

_It figured. _Naruto thought. _The instant we get into town, the first thing Jiraiya does is go after some hooker. God, I'm glad that they didn't chose him to be the Hokage.  
_

As soon as they had gotten to Shukuba which was an inn town that was close to Konoha and therefore had a large number of travelers from all over, the first thing the white haired pervert had done had been to book them a room in one of the numerous inns and go chasing after the first hooker that smiled at him, leaving him to haul their stuff to their room. Trudging up the stairs with all their stuff had not been fun, especially considering how heavy Jiraiya's pack was even though it was half filled with storage scrolls.

He'd just been getting settled and had been going down for a nap when there was a knock at the door. When he answered it, he found himself looking up into a pair of Sharingan eyes. The next thing he knew, he was out in the hallway and there was this large blue guy talking about chopping off his legs.

Crap. The damn bastard that he was almost a hundred percent certain was Itachi had trapped him in a Genjutsu without him noticing. Why was Itachi messing with him though? At least he thought it was Itachi. The man bore a striking resemblance to Itachi's entry in the Bingo Book. There was still the faint possibility that it was the bastard offspring of one of the Uchiha, despite the fact that he was wearing a Konoha Hitai-ate which had been scratched to indicate that he wasn't affiliated with the village any longer. It wouldn't be the first time that someone had tried to cash in on the reputation of a relative they bore a striking resemblance to however.

As he prepared to flee since he knew he was no match for the likes of Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke came into the hallway. The instant he saw Itachi the worried look on his face fell away and was replaced by an expression of utmost hatred. An almost impossibly fast time later, there was a Chidori in Sasuke's hand, and he was racing down the hall towards Itachi.

The attack never connected however. Itachi had grabbed Sasuke's arm and deflected the attack. As he prepared to fight in order to free his teammate from the other man, Itachi broke Sasuke's arm. Itachi's companion obviously saw him readying himself to attack, because the next thing he knew, there was a sword swinging in his direction.

Before he could dodge, the sword was deflected by a sizable toad. When he turned around, it was to see Jiraiya holding the hooker who was now unconscious, and making a scene.

&!&!&!&

Sasuke lay on the floor trying to recover. A broken arm wasn't a sort of thing that you got over after a few seconds, and got up fighting. The pain alone...

The white haired man who was called Jiraiya was talking about how putting a Genjutsu on the unconscious woman he was holding in order to separate him from Naruto was a dirty trick, and how Naruto was That Man's target. That Man then said that capturing Naruto was the Akatsuki's number one priority.

Why? Why was capturing Naruto the Akatsuki's number one priority? Who were the Akatsuki anyways?

Oh. Of course. Duh. He knew the answer to one of the questions already.

They didn't want Naruto per say, they wanted what he contained. They wanted it in order to set it loose on Konoha or any other village. With the power of the Kyuubi, they could hold entire nations hostage. Whoever "they" were, they stood to gain a great deal if they managed to capture Naruto.

Naruto's companion Jiraiya spoke of dealing with both That Man and his partner. In that moment, his hatred overcame his pain and his common sense. That Man was his to kill. He'd sworn that he'd kill that man, and he wouldn't let anyone else do so.

"Butt out!" he yelled as he managed to force himself to his feet. "This is my battle!"

Oddly enough, Jiraiya complied with his demand.

He'd sworn he'd kill Itachi. He'd spent every day of the last five years planning this. He dreamed of this at night when he wasn't having nightmares of the day his clan had died. This day had come at last.

He raced towards That Man, hoping to get a lucky shot in since he was unable to do any Jutsus due to his broken arm. He was kicked back. He raced forward again, and was kicked back once more. Naruto moved to help him, but Jiraiya held him back after he'd yelled that he didn't need any help. Despite the fact that he was getting the shit kicked out of him, this was still his fight, and he would see it through, to the bitter end if need be.

In the end, he proved to still be far weaker than That Man. That Man easily defeated him, and beat him to near unconsciousness. As his vision was fading out, that man grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the wall.

"You are weak." That Man said. "Do you know why you are weak? It's because you lack hatred."

That Man closed his eyes, and when he reopened them, they were different. He knew what was coming next. He'd experienced it once before, on the night his clan had died, and he'd been left alone. As the world started to warp around him, he found himself thinking that he hadn't lacked hatred. In fact, just about the only thing he'd felt since setting eyes on That Man again had been hatred. It had been his hatred that had put him in this position, as it had overridden his common sense and his situational awareness. The instant That Man had deflected his Chidori, he should have known that something like this would happen.

As the sky turned red, he saw bits of his life flashing before his eyes, bits that weren't part of the Genjutsu that looked like it was going to be a rehash of the Massacre. It was strange what came to you near the end.

He found himself remembering that boy Haku from Wave for some strange reason.

_"I believe that you become truly strong when you have someone precious to protect." said the exceedingly feminine boy who had woke him up._

Who was right? The boy he had fought against in Wave, or That Man who had proven strong enough to destroy his entire clan on a whim? Had he been weak because he lacked hatred, or because he wasn't fighting to protect someone else?

It had been his desire not to lose anyone else to That Man that had lent him the speed necessary to get here before That Man could cart Naruto off. When he saw That Man however, all of that had gone out the window along with everything else. He'd refused all help, and as a result of his wild actions which That Man had easily countered, he had ended up back here, back in this world where his family was being slaughtered, and there was nothing he could do but watch.

He felt the terror he had felt that night, the first time he had seen this horrifying world where his family was killed around him. He saw every expression of horror, of betrayal, of determination as members of the family who hadn't picked up a weapon in years faced his brother in order to protect their families, and fell to That Man's might, the might of the Mangekyo Sharingan, the cursed eyes you had to kill someone close to you to obtain. Even old man Masaichi who could barely walk had faced That Man in a futile attempt at protecting his family. Old man Masaichi who had shown more strength in that moment than at any other time he could remember. Old man Masaichi who had run despite the arthritis and the bad leg. Old man Masaichi had become strong, but not strong enough. None of them had been strong enough.

That Man had caught them by surprise and...

And used that moment of surprise - that moment of hesitation where the family couldn't believe that it was one of their own doing this - to kill them. On more than one occasion early on, relatives drawn to the screams had come, seen Itachi, and died believing that he'd been there to help defeat the person who was doing this.

They had been like fish in a barrel because one of the ones that should have been protecting them had chosen to slaughter them instead.

He remembered that night - the night he too had felt that same betrayal - as if it were last night. That night that his brother had revealed himself to be the monster who had slaughtered their family on a whim to "Test his ability". He hadn't done it out of hatred or malice, he'd done it because he was bored. He'd been strong, stronger than everyone else in the clan, and he'd proven it. There had been many bodies littering the ground of the Uchiha district to attest to that fact.

He remembered the fear, the running, the screaming, the begging, the...tears?

That's right. That Man had been crying.

He'd run in fear, knowing he was no match for his brother, and at the last moment when it looked as if he were going to die, his Sharingan had activated. When his Sharingan had activated, he'd turned around and fought. It hadn't been enough however. He'd been easily defeated and That Man had fled. Strangely enough, there had been tears in his eyes as he did so. Why had he been crying though? There was nothing the sort of person who would kill his own family just to see how strong he was could be sorry for.

That Man had told him before he fled the night he'd killed the clan that in order to defeat him he should run and cling to life hating him all the while, and not come back until he had eyes like his, the Mangekyo Sharingan. In order to get the Mangekyo Sharingan, he would have to kill someone close to him, someone he cared for, someone who cared for and trusted him. He would have to see the betrayal in that person's eyes as he or she fell to the ground dead the way the members of his clan had. He would have to become like That Man.

Was Avenging the clan worth becoming another Itachi? A year ago, he would have unhesitatingly said yes. Heck, six months ago even. Hell, even a month ago. But now, as he stared at the betrayed faces of the members of his clan, he found himself hesitant. He wasn't sure if he should be hesitant though. If he survived today and got another chance, he would do it for them. He would become just like That Man for them, but on a much smaller scale.

Then what? Where would he go from there? Those who slay their comrades were on almost the same level as those who killed family. If he went through with it and killed someone to attain the Mangekyo Sharingan, he would never again be welcome in Konoha. He needed to be in Konoha to restart his clan though. He needed to be in Konoha to fill the compound with his descendants. He wouldn't be able to do that if he killed another of Konoha's citizens, especially if he did it for something like the Mangekyo Sharingan.

"Little brother, are you not watching?"

"I don't think you are."

"I can fix that."

Suddenly he was strapped to something so he couldn't flee even though there was nowhere he could run to in this place, and his eyes were forced open. The killing started again. And again. And again. And again...

Eventually, after what seemed like forever, the world finally went dark.

&!&!&!&

As soon as they were far enough away from the inn, Itachi split up from Kisame, found a bush, and emptied his stomach all over it. He hated doing that to his younger brother, but Sasuke needed to be strong. Sasuke needed to be stronger than him, because there was another who wouldn't hesitate to destroy him when he was gone, someone who was almost impossibly strong, someone whose power could put a Kage to shame.

He would do whatever it took to make Sasuke strong, even what he had just done...

Sasuke was a rather single-minded person. He had been since he was a small infant. Once he had a goal, he stopped at nothing to achieve it. What he'd done to Sasuke during the Tsukuyomi was give him a fresh reminder of his goal, as time causes people to forget certain things such as the pain of loss.

Sasuke would rise from this twice as determined, and become more than twice as strong because of it.

He himself didn't have to like doing it, but it had to be done. In a way, forcing Sasuke to witness the massacre of the clan had been as much of a punishment for himself as it had been torture for Sasuke. He would never forget what he had done, but every once in a while he needed a reminder of what it had been that he'd sacrificed and why.


	35. Tsunade Retrieval: Rasengan

Naruto felt doubly determined to retrieve the new Godaime Hokage after Gai had informed him of Kakashi's current condition and made his request. It seemed that the man wasn't certain that the medics at the hospital would be able to help Sasuke and Kakashi who had also fallen victim to Itachi's Genjutsu. How the man had come to this conclusion, he didn't know. It was possible that the Medics had said something along those lines while Kakashi was being examined at the hospital. Tsunade had made a name for herself outside her position as one of the Sannin as a top flight Medical Ninja. It was said that none could match her skill in the medical field. Konoha needed her now. Most importantly, one of his precious people needed her now. He would bring her back, or he would die trying.

Despite the somewhat dismal situation, Maito Gai was almost as cheerful as always. It was almost relieving to have just a little bit of normalcy in his life after what had happened recently, even if it was the dork that constantly spouted off about the "Flames of Youth". He accepted the jumpsuit from Gai in the spirit it was given, as an acknowledgement of his existence and an offer of friendship. After seeing the look on the white haired pervert's face when he received the rather tacky garment, he had almost been tempted to wear it throughout the entire trip. Almost.

He would be saving it for when he ran out of clean laundry. That, and the moment it would be most embarrassing for the white haired pervert to be seen with someone wearing such a thing.

He and Jiraiya walked for a while until they reached another town. There was a festival of some sort going on when they reached the town, and Jiraiya sent him off to play. On the surface, this seemed rather irresponsible, but beneath that was something else. While the festival was going on, people from all over the region would be coming into town and widening the pool of information Jiraiya could gather. Sending him off would allow Jiraiya to go places that didn't allow "Children" and meet with recalcitrant contacts who would not speak in his presence. Beneath that was the surface however, and the possibility that Jiraiya would be off playing some adult games. There was no reason why the man couldn't do both while they were here, especially if the search for Tsunade was going to take as long as Jiraiya seemed to think it would.

Jiraiya had rather greedily looked at his wallet which contained his savings from several missions, and had actually tried taking it by bullshitting him about the "Three Shinobi Vices" when he'd made the mistake of pulling it out of his pack in his presence. He managed to keep Gama-chan and its contents safe however. He'd already had the lecture on the Three Vices from Tetuso-sensei, and as he hadn't borrowed the money or stolen it from an ally, there was no problem there. It was his to spend however he pleased, and donating it to the white haired pervert's hooker and booze fund didn't please.

Jiraiya had then tossed him his own pack with some line about the toads being able to find it if he got lost, and turned him loose. Understanding the need for downtime, especially in stressful times, he took the opportunity he'd been given. While he was still sad about the Old Man and the state Konoha was in, he wasn't about to wallow in misery, as there was no point in doing so. He would follow the old saying, "Live while you can. You can die at any moment". That was part of his nindo which included "Don't go back on your word unless there is absolutely no way you can fulfill the promise you made".

Even though he did his best to "Live while he could", there were still days when he was overwhelmed. Today fortunately wasn't one of them, despite the fact that one of his teammates had been injured on his watch, and one of his precious people was badly injured. It was strange really, he would have thought that if something like that had happened, he'd be having another one of his "Bad days" as Konohamaru called them. Perhaps he'd finally learned to deal with such things, as the others had said he would. Perhaps it was the distance between him and the situation making it seem less real to him, and therefore less painful. Gai had been the one to carry his injured teammate back this time. Perhaps it was the jovial atmosphere that was elevating his mood. Everyone here seemed happy, and nobody was giving him That Look. That Look was always worse on the "Bad days".

The festival looked like a great deal of fun, and he planned to enjoy it the best he could. There were booths with everything from food to balloons, and a wide variety of games of luck and skill. There was even a puppet show that was detailing a ninja battle, and he could almost swear that he recognized the ANBU puppet. After stuffing himself with a little of everything, he started on the games. While he couldn't use ninjutsu, he could use his training some of the Chakra control exercises he'd learned over the years to his benefit if he was discreet about it. As long as an off-duty or retired ninja didn't rat him out, he should be fine.

Eventually, after he'd played every game available and watched one showing of the puppet show from the beginning, getting a good laugh over what was apparently a comedy rather than a fight, he went to the grilled squid stand and got something for Jiraiya since he was almost certain that the man was getting his fill of booze rather than food whether or not he was actually working like he was supposed to be doing. In the time he'd known the man, he'd struck him as a borderline alcoholic, actually, he was almost certain that the man really was an alcoholic. It was a common enough affliction amongst shinobi that it barely rated commenting. Career shinobi like Jiraiya were much more likely to die in the field by the age of 35, rather than of say liver failure at the age of 50 or so.

When he finally found Jiraiya, the man who had holed himself up in a bar somewhere had finally lost his patience with some wannabe mob boss who had been hassling him over a serving girl or something. Using a rather unusual Jutsu that he didn't recognize, Jiraiya knocked the man into next week, destroying one of the balloon stands that littered the town in the process.

"Hey Jiraiya, I bought you some squid." he said when the man finished apologizing and paid for the damages using the wallet that the wannabe mob boss had handed over.

"Thanks." Jiraiya said as he stuck the adult sized fried squid on a stick in his mouth as he grabbed the bags of water balloons and balls that the stall owner had salvaged from the wreckage.

As they turned to leave, he could have sworn he'd heard the wannabe mob boss say "Oh god, he's training another one."

They made their way out of town, and Jiraiya informed him that he would be spending the afternoon teaching him the Jutsu he'd used on the wannabe mob boss which was called the Rasengan. He watched as Jiraiya combined elements of the two basic Chakra control exercises - tree climbing and water walking - to burst one of the water balloons that he'd carried away from the shattered stall.

He watched this closely as he was certain that it could not be quite as easy as it appeared. Fortunately, he possessed some sort of talent or extreme good luck that had allowed him to get some of the higher level Jutsus in a much shorter amount of time than was expected, and that had been before the Kage Bunshin were taken into account. Kakashi had been amazed at the speed in which he'd learned the Kage Bunshin a couple years ago. The man hadn't expected him to get it in the week that he'd allotted for the task, and instead, he'd managed it by the morning of the third day. He'd spent the rest of the week finding out exactly how many Kage Bunshin he could summon. He'd hit about a thousand before he'd nearly killed himself with Chakra Exhaustion.

With his Kage Bunshin, he could learn things that could take other individuals months or even years to learn in a much shorter period of time. He was almost certain that he'd gotten the Wind element mastered, but he wasn't a hundred percent so as he hadn't been able to spend much time with another Wind Affinity. Asuma was rather busy with his own team, and he didn't know anyone else with that affinity which was rather rare, especially in Fire Country where the main affinity amongst the ninja is Fire.

The reason why the main affinity for ninja in Fire country is Fire was the same reason the main affinity in Wind is Wind, and Water is Water and so on is because shinobi with that such affinities tended to group together in the countries that bore that name, creating a wider gene pool for that affinity. The reason this seems to have happened, according to the study he'd read was that each country had an environment where a particular affinity would be slightly more useful. In Wind Country, a Wind affinity could be useful in creating a wind to counter the wind of a sandstorm creating a protective barrier that kept the flying sand from flaying you alive. In Earth Country, the Earth affinity could allow a user to create usable farming soil out of what had previously been a couple inches of dirt over about a hundred feet of bedrock, or to burrow away from the hot sun. Fire Country had been mostly forest before it was torn up by centuries of war, and had become forest again after Konoha had been built. In such an environment, Fire was useful for clearing out underbrush in controlled burns, as well as creating an instant campfire. All elements were of course useful in battle.

"Can I use Kage Bunshin for this?" he asked Jiraiya. Tetsuo-sensei had agreed with Kakashi that as long as he was working alongside his clones, it would be fine to use them to learn new things. If he tried to run off to play again, Tetsuo-sensei would come down on him hard. The punishments Tetsuo-sensei could devise were things that he would do his best to avoid.

"Sure, why not?" Jiraiya said as he settled himself against a nearby tree.

"Thanks." he said as he summoned about a hundred Kage Bunshin and set about trying to figure out how to pop a water balloon by rotating his Chakra.

Jiraiya looked slightly amazed by this for about half a second before he went back to his sake. Even though people already knew about the "Thousand Kage Bunshin" incident, they were still quite surprised when he summoned more than about ten Kage Bunshin at a time. Jiraiya's reaction was quite tame compared to some.

&!&!&!&

Maito Gai sighed as he settled himself next to Kakashi's bed. Lee who had been injured during the invasion, and Neji who had been further injured when he went to retrieve his cousin who had been kidnapped during the invasion despite the fact that he wasn't up to full strength were both already out of the hospital. Lee would be on leave for a while since he'd managed to break his leg in several places, nearly shattering his tibia. The Medics who had been swamped and rather pressed for time had considered amputation, but fortunately for his student who had been unconscious at the time, he'd nixed that idea.

He'd been out retrieving the Uchiha boy when Asuma's summon had come and informed him that they had taken Kakashi to the hospital, and that the Medics hadn't been able to do more than put Kakashi in a bed and hope he woke up on his own. If Kakashi did wake up, his mental state would be uncertain. People who suffered through particularly traumatic Genjutsu sometimes suffered breaks from reality and would witdraw into their own little worlds to protect themselves. It might take years of intensive therapy and treatments with the Yamanaka the hospital had on hand to bring Kakashi back to the person he had been only hours ago. The Uchiha boy would most likely be in the same state, as he had suffered from the same technique.

He hoped that Jiraiya and the Uzumaki boy would bring Tsunade-sama soon. The longer this continued, the worse the prognosis would become. Tsunade was a legendary Medic, and it was said that she could cure almost any ailment under the sun. That wouldn't do Kakashi and his pupil any good however if there was nothing left to cure.

While he waited for Tsunade to come, he would have to hold to the two things that had gotten him through every difficult situation so far, patience, and the faith that things would improve.

"Kakashi, you better get well. If you don't, I-I'll...I don't know what I'll do." he said. "Despite that annoyingly "Hip" attitude, you've always had my back, and I should have had yours."


	36. Tsunade Retrieval: Finding Tsunade

It had taken Naruto a day and a half to figure out how to spin the water in the water balloon in order to get the balloon to burst the way Jiraiya had. One of the clones had discovered it almost accidentally. What had happened was that he had tried spinning the water one way, and then tried spinning the water another way. The clone had rapidly switched from one direction to another and noticed a peculiar disruption. When he rapidly switched back and forth again and got the same disruption, he tried rapidly changing directions. Eventually, the balloon burst. Apparently the trick was to either swirl his Chakra about in different directions all at once or to change directions so rapidly that it seemed that he was doing so. He would try both when he did the second step which Jiraiya had described.

It took him nearly a week to master the second step, and during that week, Jiraiya spent his days interviewing several contacts as well as a bunch of random travelers who had come to the town for the two week long festival, and spent his evenings drinking and getting serviced by hookers. He was starting to doubt that Jiraiya had ever been with a woman that he hadn't paid for. Eventually, after hours and hours of hard work, one of his clones had managed to burst the rubber ball that he'd been given. A few hours later, he was able to consistently replicate that feat.

Jiraiya then introduced him to the third phase of the Jutusu, the one that would complete the Rasengan. It would take a great deal of work, but he would get it eventually, and long before the three years it had taken the Yondaime to create the Jutsu had passed. It always took much longer for someone to create a jutsu due to all of the trial and error involved than it did to learn one that had already been created.

All of the pain he had undergone learning this Jutsu, and all of the Kage Bunshin that had been sacrificed would be worth it in the end

&!&!&!&

Jiraiya sighed. While he knew more about the Akatsuki and Oto's current movements thanks to several contacts, he'd gotten absolutely zilch on the Tsunade front. Tsunade had always been good at hiding. The information he'd gained on the Akatsuki was little more than garbage. Apparently all that his contacts knew was that several of the other Hidden Villages had hired the Akatsuki to do the sort of wetwork that Danzo's little organization did for Konoha. On the Orochimaru front, it seemed like his former teammate had holed up in his little village and was licking his wounds.

That was another day wasted. He would get in a few hours of downtime before he wandered off to bed and checked on Naruto's progress again in the morning. That boy truly was his father's child, as well as his mother's. He seemed to be an almost even blend of both of his parents in fact. He had his mother's bone structure and his father's coloring. He had a personality that was a mix of both that of his father and his mother, and possessed his mother's somewhat charming verbal tic, though he sometimes ended his sentences with "-ttebayo." rather than the "-ttebane" his mother had used. Someone had obviously worked with Naruto on that verbal tic since it showed up most often when he wasn't paying attention, or was rather excited.

Teaching Naruto was a somewhat enjoyable experience, and he could see why both little Kakashi and Shimura Tetsuo had been reluctant to let him go. The boy learned a great deal with minimal instruction, had incredible leaps of intuition that left you scratching your head as you raced to keep up, learned at an incredibly fast pace, and would still be at it long after another person would have given up and wandered off to do something else.

He couldn't wait until he was able to instruct Naruto full time rather than split his attention between two tasks.

He would branch out his search to other nearby towns in the morning. Somebody had to know something about where Tsunade was located.

&!&!&!&

Tsunade didn't really care about the money that flowed away like water. She knew she wouldn't win. She never won. Not in life, or in gambling. The times it did seem that she had won at one or the other were just the universe setting her up for an even greater disaster. She'd learned that long ago.

Gambling took her mind off of _them_. She couldn't think their names. If she did, she would see their faces again, see their faces as they had been both in life and in death. Damn. It was too late. She was remembering them again, but then again, she never forgot. They had hung at the edges of her mind day in and day out for decades.

As far as she was concerned, it was a good thing that Shizune had her mother's hair, unlike her and Dan's cousins. Seeing that blue haired family running about happy and healthy without Dan there had been much too painful. Unlike some of his relatives from his mother's side of the family who had been known to make off with anything that wasn't nailed down, Dan hadn't been all that much of a thief, even though he had stolen her heart. He had then carried it away with him into death the day he had died on that battlefield.

Nawaki, Nawaki had been a surprise that had come long after her parents had lost hope and begun to think that Tsunade would be an only child. Her mother had had a hard time conceiving her, and had come to believe that her inability to have any more children had been related to the fact that she had been born after the Kyuubi had been sealed away within her mother. Her parents had married at a rather young age after meeting and falling in love during a rather difficult mission, and she had been born after almost three years of miscarriages. When her mother had announced that she was pregnant, the whole family had been cautiously optimistic.

The first trimester passed without incident, and they breathed a collective sigh of relief. The second trimester passed, and the child was still there. Then came the third trimester and Nawaki's extremely early arrival. Everyone had said that it had been a miracle that Nawaki had survived. Nawaki had been the family miracle child who had been loved and doted upon by everyone. As he grew, it had become more and more obvious that the boy was more like his Uzumaki cousins rather than his Senju relatives. He had been adventurous, wild, bold, passionate, and determined.

When Nawaki had been placed on a Genin team under her former teammate Orochimaru, she had been certain that her teammate would keep her brother safe. Nawaki's death had marked the beginning of the end for the Sannin. Orochimaru had not been able to deal with death and loss all that well, and he had lost a great deal during the Second Shinobi war as well as the Third. It had more than likely been these losses that had driven Orochimaru to hole himself away in his lab studying things, and start forgetting that people were actually people, not test subjects. After one has been given leave to experiment on the enemy however one pleased, it was only a short jump to experimenting on others, such as fellow villagers. She herself had almost made that leap a few times and could understand what had driven Orochimaru to do so.

She had heard the reports that Konoha had been invaded and the Sandaime killed, but as she hadn't listened to the original broadcast, she had taken them with a grain of salt. Rumor had Konoha in every state from entirely intact minus some cosmetic damage to completely destroyed with only a few survivors wandering through the rubble. She'd seen a couple Konoha shinobi out on missions, so she knew that the village hadn't been destroyed, as it was apparently still open for business. The shinobi she'd seen looked rather stressed and somewhat overworked however, meaning that the village was short staffed at the moment. How short staffed however, she couldn't tell.

It wasn't her concern however. She had left Konoha and its problems behind long ago after she had lost everything. She wouldn't let them trail behind her reminding her of her losses wherever she went now. She had more than enough reminders already.

&!&!&!&

Orochimaru hated this. It had nearly been a month since his former Sensei had called upon the Shinigami and sealed his arms away. If it had merely been that he couldn't use his arms, he wouldn't be nearly as frustrated as he was. Along with a lack of mobility in his arms though, there was excruciating pain. He didn't like pain, and he didn't like people seeing him when he was weak. It had been for those two reasons that he'd killed any number of Kabuto's assistants who had been assigned to help him.

The only reason he was putting up with this was because he was waiting for Sasuke. He would have had the boy kidnapped earlier and brought to him, but the child had been attacked by Itachi and by all accounts was laying in a coma, and therefore useless for his purposes. Itachi was yet another thorn in his side. He didn't want to throw this body away just yet if there was a chance that it could be salvaged. Changing bodies was rather difficult and left him weakened for a time.

For probably the first time, he was glad that he'd selected a female body this time as he was still experimenting with the transfer process. If he had been in a male body, going to the bathroom would be far more difficult, and rather unpleasant, especially considering what it would take to go to the bathroom without assistance. He knew this, because when he'd gained his ability to extend his tongue incredible distances, he'd done what anyone would have done with such an ability, and...experimented. He was able to shut out his sense of taste when he had to, considering the fact that he used his tongue to grab a wide variety of objects, including people, but still, doing _that_ was...unhygienic as far as he was concerned.

He was in a particularly bad mood today since the pain was worse than normal, and Kabuto's current assistant was an unrepentant ass-kisser that Kabuto probably sent to get out of the way permanently. He wasn't really in the mood to take the medicine he'd been given however, since it had an awful flavor that he couldn't entirely shut out, a horribly bitter aftertaste that took enough water to leave him feeling bloated to get rid of, and the texture was downright nasty. He had a feeling that Kabuto did this to the medicines he made to prevent malingering, and to keep people from bothering him since they were too afraid to approach him for treatment.

After he'd killed Kabuto's nth assistant, Kabuto finally showed up to check on him and give him the good news. Tsunade had been found. He was going to get his arms fixed. As soon as he got his arms fixed, he could go and get Sasuke fixed. As soon as Sasuke was fixed, he was going to put his curse seal on the boy and prepare him for transfer.

Everything was looking up.

Kabuto helped him dress, tying all of the fiddly bits that he couldn't deal with using his tongue, and they set out from his lair after Kabuto cleaned up the mess that had once been his assistant since he didn't want to come back to find it stinking up the place since his other subordinates were too afraid to enter his room unless ordered, and probably wouldn't do so even if it was to remove a rotting corpse.

All too soon, they were on the road, traveling at an excruciatingly slow pace since he didn't want to trip and land flat on his face. He wasn't in the mood to go licking the ground in order to get up. They would reach Tsunade though. They would reach Tsunade, and he would use his ace in the hole to get his arms fixed. He knew Tsunade's weaknesses, all of them, and he wasn't above using each and every last one to get what he wanted.

&!&!&!&

Jiraiya had been asking around a bar that was the local watering hole for gamblers when he finally struck paydirt. His long stalled search for Tsunade had finally grown hot. The Legendary Sitting Duck had lost bigtime, and headed out of the town he was asking in. Fortunately, one of the other gamblers had heard her intended location.

After thanking the man who really shouldn't be drinking in the mid-afternoon - not that he was really one to talk - he raced out to where he'd left Naruto. The boy was in the clearing he'd left him in destroying trees as he fine-tuned his Rasengan. The boy had almost fully mastered in a single month a jutsu that had taken him more than three months to learn.

"You truly are your fa- er, mother's son." he told the boy as he examined the tree that had just been trashed when he'd entered the clearing. "You'll have to finish working on this on the road. I've found a lead on Tsunade and we have to leave now before she goes on the move and vanishes again."

The somewhat tired looking boy perked up at this, and started looking excited. He could tell that the month of relative inactivity had been wearing on him. Naruto was hyperactive and had a great deal of energy, just like his mother had at that age. It had taken her years to calm down, and even then she hadn't calmed down entirely.

He had considered taking Kushina on as a student at one point as she had reminded him a bit of himself when he was younger, but his sensei had forbidden it. For one, Kushina was the Kyuubi Jinchuriki, and he hadn't wanted her out in the open where she would be vulnerable for another abduction attempt like the one Kumo had made around the time he'd made his request. Two, Kushina was a girl, and he was well known far and wide as a pervert, even then before he'd written his famous Icha Icha novels. Taking her on as a student could seriously damage his reputation even if nothing happened. Considering all of the things that had been said after Orochimaru had run off with Anko, he had to concede that point.

Having Naruto as his student was interesting, it was like having Minato and Kushina all rolled into one package. He found himself wondering exactly what the future would bring, as the boy was as stubborn as his father, as unpredictable as his mother, and as talented as both of them had been at that age.

Now however, he would have to concentrate on what he was going to say to persuade Tsunade to return to a village she had sworn to never return to, and to take a job she never wanted.


	37. Tsunade Retrieval: Deals and Refusals

Momochi Zabuza carefully schooled his expression so his darling wife wouldn't see his disgust and misinterpret it. He hated vomit looking at it made him want to puke, and that was just what his wife was doing at the moment. As was his husbandly duty in this instance, he was holding the Mizukage's hair back away from the toilet. He just wished that there wasn't so much of it. The woman's hair was extremely thick and nearly ankle length, and bits of it kept trying to escape and head for the toilet.

He hoped it was all worth it in the end. One day, he would have an heir to carry on the Momochi family name, but until then, he would have to put up with vomit, odd cravings, and eventually a small creature that screamed for food and attention at all hours, crapped itself, and did god only knew what else.

&!&!&!&

Orochimaru hadn't particularly cared that the castle that had been destroyed by the serpent that Kabuto had summoned for him had been listed as a "Cultural Heritage site" or that it had been more than five hundred years old. He'd destroyed things that were far older, things that were far more valuable, and things that were both before in times of war and times that should have been of peace. What Orochimaru cared about was that he was close to his goal, and that the pain and the sickness that had come with his sensei's final curse would finally end.

He would have to play this carefully and not show any more than his most obvious weakness while prodding at Tsunade's major one. A proper entrance was often half the battle, and he'd just made a majorly impressive one that was sure to put his former teammate slightly off guard. Now to push her completely off center...

During the initial negotiations, things went pretty much how he figured they would go. Tsunade was naturally slightly pissed over the death of their sensei and told him as much. He himself still felt a twinge of something, but it was mostly buried under his hatred of the old man who had taken his arms with him into death. There had naturally been a squabble between his apprentice and Tsunade's. They had appeared to be even in that small bout, but he knew that Kabuto was the stronger of the two, the stronger and wilier of the two. Tsunade tried her best to bluff her way out of the situation with a small show of power, but he knew the woman far too well to fall for it. He made his offer, and then he left. As he had suspected, Tsunade hadn't gotten over her haemophobia, but considering the source of it, it was likely that she never would.

He had given Tsunade a week to decide, a week to stew over things. She knew that Tsunade would be spending that week suffering, as she would be able to do nothing other than think of those she lost, those she failed, those she had come to believe she had killed by handing over her grandfather's necklace. Tsunade would either agree to the deal, or she would try to kill him. Knowing Tsunade, he knew that it would be a very close decision for her, even though he planned on turning around and destroying Konoha as soon as his arms were repaired, and the losses amongst his forces compensated for. Tsunade had come to despise the village that she had believed had taken the lives of the ones she loved, the village that her brother and her lover had both sworn to rule over as Hokage one day.

He'd liked both Nawaki and Dan in his own way. Nawaki had been on his first Genin team, a team he hadn't been certain that he was ready for but had taken anyways since it was necessary for the war effort. Nawaki was brave, bold, and far too easily excitable for his own good. It had cost the boy his life. Had Nawaki not run ahead of the team that day, and survived, there was a small possibility that he would have been the one running around the village bragging about the fact that his student had become Hokage rather than Jiraiya. That would have been after he'd grown tired of being Hokage himself of course.

Had Dan survived, there was a good chance that he would have been the Yondaime instead of Minato. Both were extremely talented men who had loved their village, but Dan had been slightly more loved by the populace who had some reservations about Minato's powers and abilities up until his death had wiped out every bad thing the citizens of Konoha had felt about him. The position should have been his with neither Dan or Minato having even been considered, but that was neither here nor there.

In a week's time, he would learn Tsunade's answer, and be able to plan accordingly. While he did hope she would accept and do anything it took to get Dan and Nawaki back again as she had once said she would as she cried over their graves, he wasn't banking on it. If worst came to worst, he could take more drastic measures to get his former teammate to cooperate. Though Tsunade didn't seem to realize it, there was still someone in her life, someone she would miss. The fact that that little assistant of hers was one of Dan's blood relatives was just icing on the cake as far as he was concerned, it would make the loss all the more traumatizing for his former teammate.

&!&!&!&

Sakura sighed as she replaced the dead flower in the vase by Sasuke's bed with a fresh one again. She wished that there was something she could do for her teammate, but the only thing she could do was what the medics were doing already, sitting, waiting, and hoping that Sasuke would still be Sasuke when he woke up. Though she had begun to research medical jutsu on her own, she didn't have the knowledge necessary to heal her teammate. She had been coming here every day when she wasn't on missions or tending to other duties. One day, Sasuke would wake up, and she'd be there to see it, be there to see for herself whether or not her teammate was alright, or would be in the future.

She had visited Kakashi-sensei earlier like she usually did. He was in much the same condition as Sasuke. Gai was there like he always was when he wasn't training or on missions. Lee was there as well like a shadow or a miniature clone. Lee was currently on leave while his leg healed. From what she'd heard, a building or something had fallen on him while he had been protecting Konoha during the invasion. Lee occasionally came to check on Sasuke as well, but mostly it was to see how she was holding up rather than out of sympathy for her teammate's condition.

Neji had shown up as well at one point, but that had been to ask where Naruto had gone off to. She couldn't tell him beyond the fact that he'd gone on some sort of mission, and had yet to return despite the fact that it had been a month. Neji had some small burn scars across his arms, and moved with a slight limp as a result of the beating he had gotten when he had gone to rescue his cousin despite having been shocked and burned a short while before. During the invasion, a couple of Kumo ninja had taken the opportunity to kidnap Hinata who was still recovering from the injuries she'd sustained. Neji and Kiba had gone out to retrieve her since nobody else could be spared at the time. The two of them had nearly died before Hyuuga Hiashi and his father were finally able to reach them and rescue all three of them.

Ino had visited on several occasions, and instead of fighting as usual, they had sat and talked of old times as they waited for signs that Sasuke was regaining consciousness. Their friendship may never become what it had been before she'd thrown it away over Sasuke who couldn't have cared less about her at that point, but it was on the mend. It seemed to be the only good thing that had come out of this entire disaster.

&!&!&!&

Jiraiya had gone to every gambling hall in Tanzaku and failed to find Tsunade. At each establishment, he'd half expected to see his former teammate drunkenly throwing money and chips down for the dealer or her fellow gamblers to rake in. No Tsunade however. There were any number of people who had seen and taken the money of the Legendary Sitting Duck, but no-one seemed to know where she was at the moment, even when he'd plunked down money for the information. His most recent lead had been a Pachinko parlor where Tsunade had actually won, oddly enough. That could be a very bad sign however, as whenever Tsunade won at gambling, something terrible always followed.

After a while he had decided to find a bit of high ground and search for his teammate with the telescope he usually used for research. Tanzaku had a rather tall and impressive castle that was set above the town which would serve his purposes nicely.

"Um, Jiraiya?" Naruto asked when he informed the boy of their new destination. "Where's the castle?"

He blinked, and turned, before noticing the massive and rather new looking pile of rubble where the castle should be. He had known that he was preoccupied over the coming reunion between himself and Tsunade after more than a decade of being apart, and with his argument to persuade her to take an unwanted job off his hands, but to be so unobservant as to not even notice that one of the major local landmarks was missing entirely?

As he made his way up the hill to survey the damage, someone came running down yelling something about a giant snake. Crap. Orochimaru had found her first. He should have known considering the fact that death and destruction on a massive scale were more Orochimaru's speed.

From the lack of further damage in the surrounding area barring what looked like one of Tsunade's infamous wall punches, he was guessing that there hadn't been a battle, or that it hadn't been a long one. Both Orochimaru and Tsunade were long gone from the area, and it was more than likely that Tsunade had fled Tanzaku as well. Now that he had a trail to pick up, it shouldn't take him another month to find her again. He had always been better at finding things than Orochimaru was. Orochimaru could lose his house keys by setting them on his dresser. He would do a sweep of Tanzaku just in case, as it was possible that Tsunade had gone to ground hoping that Orochimaru would think she'd fled and go searching for her elsewhere.

&!&!&!&

Naruto sighed. He was tired, and his feet hurt. He could walk or run for far longer than a day if he really had to, but it was still wasn't all that pleasant. Eventually, Jiraiya had called a halt to their search for Tsunade who had most likely survived her encounter with Orochmaru as there weren't any bodies or blood in the area surrounding the shattered wall near the ruins of the castle which were more than likely filled with dead tourists. It was possible that Tsunade had been one of the tourists that had been inside the landmark at the time the castle was destroyed, but Jiraiya said that that was highly unlikely since the wall had appeared to have been her work rather than Orochimaru's.

They walked into a pub for dinner. He was half expecting the owner to shoo him out as they did so. It was pretty much only in Konoha and probably the other ninja villages that "children" didn't get shooed out of the bars. In Konoha, if you had a hitai-ate, you could pretty much go anywhere that wasn't restricted to "Authorized Personnel Only". While Genin weren't allowed alcohol, they were allowed to sit with their Chunin friends who were, and if the Chunin happened to slip their friend a drink, well, it didn't usually get commented on.

As luck, or perhaps Jiraiya's Chakra sensing abilities when it came to teammates and others who had been close to him would have it, Tsunade happened to be in the bar Jiraiya had selected in the process of getting completely wasted. They moved to sit with her, and Jiraiya ordered a rather nice meal for all of them.

He decided to use the meal to get a better understanding of his new Hokage who had once been one of the Old Man's students the same as Jiraiya and Orochimaru. As he studied his new Hokage, he noticed that he could see a bit of Senju Hashirama about her, especially around the nose and the mouth, though she bore a stronger resemblance to her maternal grandmother Uzumaki Mito. She had her father's hair color however. She seemed supremely unhappy, and he had a feeling that it had something to do with her encounter with Orochimaru which she hadn't really seemed to want to talk about.

Throughout the meal, Jiraiya kept serving Tsunade drinks, even though she didn't need any more, and would quite likely end up with alcohol poisoning if she continued to drink at the rate she had been during the meal and before it if the number of empty bottles in front of her were any indication. Oddly enough, it seemed as if Jiraiya were bracing himself for something as the meal progressed.

After a while, when Jiraiya and Tsunade were done eating, Tsunade asked what Jiraiya wanted with her, and he infromed her. She did not appear to be pleased with the news. If it had been him, he would have been jumping around in joy, not shuffling a deck of cards for a game with Jiraiya and almost calmly discussing the Old Man's death as if she hadn't really cared either way. As Tsunade and Jiraiya sat there almost calmly playing cards, Jiraiya asked her what her answer to the village's request that she become Hokage would be.

He knew that people said things they didn't mean when they were drunk, but insulting all four of the previous Hokages and the village and saying the mean things she had said about the Yondaime and the Old Man? Had he still been as wild as he had been when he'd first become a Genin, he probably would have tried to beat Tsunade up regardless of the consequences. As it was...

"This bitch is going to be Hokage?" he asked while she was talking about the job being nothing but trouble. "You want someone like her in charge of the village? The only good I see coming out of that would be the fact that the villagers would all be cheering for some reason other than feeling that they were obligated to do so when I get named Hokage."

"You? Hokage? Ha!" Tsunade said as she grabbed her drink.

"I swore I'd become Hokage one day, and that's one promise that only death will make me go back on!" he said as he clenched his fists under the table. It would be supremely stupid to attack one of the Sannin, especially the one who had been named Hokage, even though she hadn't earned that title. While she had refused for now, they hadn't spent an entire month searching for the woman only to go home empty handed, and he knew that Jiraiya wouldn't leave it at that, he couldn't. If he did, that would mean...

The only other viable option for the position of Hokage besides Tsunade was Jiraiya, and he wasn't sure which of them would be worse. Don't get him wrong, he liked Jiraiya, and the man had been added to his list of precious people, but he wasn't the sort of leader Konoha needed now, or ever for that matter. The man was a drunken pervert who frittered almost all of his available cash away on women and booze and would have taken his money to spend on them as well if he ever gave him the opportunity. Jiraiya was like Satoshi, you had to watch your stuff around him, other than that, he was fine. He just wasn't what Konoha needed, especially considering the state the village was currently in.

Tsunade gave him a strange look before spending the rest of the evening quietly drinking until she passed out.


	38. Tsunade Retrieval: Tsunade's choice

Tsunade had woken up the morning after her meeting with Jiraiya with a massive hangover. She had drank enough to pass out, but she hadn't drank enough to forget yesterday however. She had the feeling that it would take enough alcohol to kill her to do that. She should have known her day would go to hell like it had when she'd won bigtime at the Pachinko parlor

Orochimaru had given her an offer that she wasn't certain she could refuse yesterday afternoon. If she had a ryo for the number of times she had wished that she could have Dan and Nawaki back, she would be able to pay back all of her debts tenfold. Orochimaru had offered to bring them back to her, all she would have to do would be to heal his arms, which was simple enough.

There was a catch to this though. There always was a catch. First of all, if she accepted the offer and healed the arms of her teammate, the man who had betrayed Konoha, the man who had killed their sensei, he would turn around and destroy the village she had left forever along with Dan's niece more than a decade ago. Secondly, in order to get Dan and Nawaki back, she would have to sacrifice the lives of two other people. While she was willing to sacrifice a couple of strangers, maybe a couple of criminals who didn't deserve to live, she had a feeling that Dan and Nawaki wouldn't be happy that she had done so in order to bring them back. They would be even more unhappy if they discovered that she had betrayed the village that they had sacrificed their lives for by helping the man who had murdered the Hokage and swore to destroy Konoha.

She wanted them back so badly though, and having them gone hurt so much...

To top off her day from hell, Jiraiya showed up with Kushina and Minato's brat, and told her that Konoha wanted her to be the Godaime Hokage. She'd never wanted to be Hokage. That had been Nawaki and Dan's dream. That had been the dream that both of them had died for. That had been the position that had taken her Grandfather, her Great-uncle, her sensei, and Jiraiya's student.

She has the feeling that Jiraiya won't leave her alone until she says yes and follows him back to the village that she'd sworn never to return to though, even though she would be the worst Hokage in the history of Konoha. Minato's son who greatly resembled Kushina, and Nawaki who had taken after their Uzumaki relatives, told her as much. Like Minato who had died in office, Kushina who had sacrificed herself to reseal the Kyuubi, Nawaki who had died in the field, and Dan who had died right in front of her, little Naruto's dream was to become Hokage. Like little Nawaki, he too had sworn not to go back on his word.

Why couldn't Jiraiya have left her alone, left her to her a life where she didn't tally up all of the precious people she had lost instead of just the two most painful losses, left her to a life where she had pretty much forgotten the existence of her young cousin who had reminded her far too much of Nawaki just as her son was now?

She strongly suspected that Jiraiya knew exactly how much it hurt to see that boy, and that that had been why he had brought him along. Just looking at that boy who looked like Nawaki, but who had Dan's barely restrained temper was painful. That boy in whom Kushina's fire flashed from Minato's eyes. Making her decision on whether or not she should accept Orochimaru's offer was difficult enough without Jiraiya showing up with a living reminder of the people she lost. Heck, that kid even had her mother's whisker marks, whisker marks that had been the sign of a child who had been born to the Kyuubi Jinchuriki.

On the one hand, Nawaki and Dan would be disappointed in her if she betrayed Konoha by helping an enemy. On the other however, they didn't need to ever know what she had done, especially if she kept them away from Konoha or rather the crater Orochimaru was going to turn Konoha into forever. She would be glad to have them back, even if they were upset with her.

This decision shouldn't be so hard. She knew what right was, and she knew what had been in the oath she had taken as a Genin. She knew what her grandfather whom she didn't really remember since he'd died when she was a toddler would say. She knew what her Great-Uncle who had died while she was still small would say. She knew what her Sensei would say. She knew what Jiraiya's little apprentice would say. She knew what Nawaki and Kushina would say loudly and frequently. But still...

She did her best to avoid Jiraiya and the boy for the next couple of days. Jiraiya knew something was up beyond her reluctance to become Hokage. He always could read her like an open book. After two days, her former teammate caught up with her and told her that he would personally kill her if she betrayed Konoha. She could tell that it killed the man to tell her this. Jiraiya had always loved her, as a friend, and as a teammate. Though he still held out the vague hope that they could become something more, he didn't hold it out that far.

She, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru had been the closest knit of Genin teams for their generation, three early Academy graduates who had been hand-picked to be trained by the Sandaime Hokage himself. The three of them had meteorically risen through the ranks, sticking together as they did so. They had been each-other's closest friends for decades even when circumstances and war tried to rip them apart. Konoha had never seen the likes of them again, though there was one other team that had come close, before it had been torn apart by the Third Shinobi War. That team had been Team Minato which had been trained by the future Yondaime Hokage. There had been the somewhat aloof and extremely talented orphan who had little to no idea as to how to connect with others, there had been the talented and tough medical specialist, and there had been the determined goof who had held the three together. She knew that Jiraiya had been considering taking on the little goofball Obito as an apprentice before the boy had died. It was a real pity that that had happened. She liked Obito, he'd been so much like Nawaki.

When the team had split at the end of the Third Shinobi War, and Orochimaru had fled, it had hurt almost as much as losing Nawaki and Dan had. It had been then that she had taken Shizune and left Konoha which no-longer held anything for her but painful reminders of what had been, and what could have been. She could tell that the split and Orochimaru's betrayal had hurt Jiraiya greatly as well. Jiraiya too had left Konoha upon the death of his student, and had taken to drinking far more heavily than he should, much as she did.

Neither of them had been able to bring themselves to kill Orochimaru in the near decade and a half since he had been discovered to be a monster. Even though he was a traitor, he was still a teammate, and neither of them had been willing to get his blood on their hands. Now however, Jiraiya had told her that if she too betrayed Konoha, she wouldn't survive the betrayal, and he had meant it. Though following through would more than likely kill him, Jiraiya had meant it.

All too soon, the week was almost up, and Shizune was demanding that she not go. She did the only thing she could do at that point, and made sure that Shizune didn't follow her the next day. There was a good chance that things would go wrong, and despite what she chose, she didn't' want Shizune to get caught in the crossfire. Shizune was all she had now, and she didn't want Dan's niece dying for her as well.

&!&!&!&

Jiraiya hadn't been having a good week. He had come to a decision that he knew would kill him earlier that week after he'd begun to suspect another of his teammates of treason. When he'd first suspected Orochimaru, he hadn't wanted to believe it, and he didn't want to believe it now despite the very obvious signs Tsundade was displaying. Ironic really, the person who had been nominated as Godaime Hokage of Konoha being willing to betray the village the way he had a more than sneaking suspicion that Tsunade was.

He'd known that Tsunade would originally reject the position of Hokage, but he had been certain that he would find a way to get her to come around, even if he had to invoke the names of Dan and Nawaki. He knew that Tsunade would see a great deal of Nawaki in Naruto as well as little Minato and Kushina. Kushina and Tsunade had been as thick as thieves at one point. Now, he wasn't too sure. Perhaps it would have been better if he had accepted the position of Hokage and not been forced to face the possibility that Tsunade too could be a traitor to Konoha. Hearing her speak as if she didn't care that their Sensei was dead had been painful. Hearing her call the man who had practically raised them a fool for giving his life for the village hurt even worse.

Tsunade had met with Orochimaru before he had found her, and something had happened. Something that she wasn't willing to share. Between him and Orochimaru, Tsunade had always been a bit closer to Orochimaru. When they were small, Tsunade had had a massive crush on the other boy, and he wasn't entirely certain that those feelings were gone. Even though Orochimaru was a traitor, he was one of the few people Tsunade had left, one of the few people they both had left. They had, all three of them, been closer than blood. That wasn't exactly something you threw away, even if one of the people closest to you hurt you as badly as Orochimaru had.

After a week of getting the runaround from Tsunade, he decided that it would be the best idea to interrogate Shizune while Tsunade was away. Over the past week, he'd been dropping hints that he knew something was going on and that Orochimaru was involved, but Shizune had been silent, remaining loyal to Tsunade. She had looked even more stressed with each passing day however. He had a feeling that she might finally break down and spill everything today. If not today, then tomorrow maybe.

He headed to Tsunade and Shizune's room with Naruto trailing behind. When he got there, it was to find Shizune on the floor unconscious. She was quickly revived, and turned out not to be very seriously injured however. She had been taken down by a medical technique of some sort.

"Oh god! We have to go, we have to stop her!" Shizune said after she was fully awake and had been given the date and time.

"What is it we have to stop?" he asked as he followed Shizune out the window.

"Orochimaru offered to revive Dan and Nawaki if Tsunade fixed his arms for him. He gave her a week to decide, and that week is up now. I hadn't thought she would seriously consider the offer, but she did. I had begged Tsunade not to go, but she went anyway." Shizune said as they raced through the trees towards what was presumably the meeting point.

"Oh damn." he said. He had hoped and prayed that it wouldn't come to this...

"Who was Dan?" Naruto asked, apparently having known who Nawaki was from his research on Tsunade, which didn't seem to have been completed. He had almost sent the boy away, but they would need all of the help they could get, especially since he had no idea how many people Orochimaru would bring with him. He prayed that the boy wouldn't get killed in the coming battle.

"Dan was Tsunade's boyfriend. He died early on in the Third Shinobi War. Tsunade was there trying to heal him when it happened." he replied.

"Oh." Naruto said as they continued towards the place where Tsunade and Orochimaru would meet.

All he could think as they raced towards the coming battle was "Oh god, not both of them". He'd lost his Sensei, and now he'd lost both of his teammates forever. After the invasion, he had finally acknowledged the fact that he would have to kill his former friend the instant the opportunity presented itself. Now, he would have to kill Tsunade as well, since she too had turned traitor to Konoha. The day that the other two Sannin were dead would be the day he too died. The three of them would be together in death, much the way they had once been in life.

"I'm sorry Naruto." he said.

"Why?" Naruto asked.

"I'll tell you later." he replied. The boy didn't need the knowledge of what he planned to do clouding his concentration during the coming battle.

&!&!&!&

The time she had dreaded all week had come, and Orochimaru was standing in front of her.

"Have you made your decision?" Orochimaru asked.

"Yes." she replied.

_I'm sorry Dan, Nawaki, I'll be seeing you soon._

She gathered her Chakra into her hands...


	39. Tsunade Retrieval: No More Sacrifices

_Closer. Closer. _Tsunade thought as Orochimaru had managed to force his arms to move to reach out for the sphere of Chakra she had created. Any second now, the deed would be done, the Sannin would truly be separated forever, and she would see Dan and Nawaki again soon when she followed her teammate into death. She had almost been willing to do a most heinous thing in order to have Dan and Nawaki by her side in life where she knew for a fact that she would be able to see and hold them again. Instead, she would have faith that they would be waiting for her on the other side.

She wasn't as good or as strong a person as Dan and Nawaki had been. She had been weak. Because she had been weak, she had almost been willing to drag Dan and Nawaki back into this world in spite of any feelings they might have had about her doing so. Almost...

Suddenly, there was a kunai sailing through the air, and Orochimaru had leapt back away from the sphere of energy that would have been his death as it shredded him apart from the inside rather than healed him the instant he came into contact with it. She had forgotten about Orochimaru's assistant...

So close. So close...

"I honestly hadn't expected you to betray me like this Tsunade." Orochimaru said. "I really would have brought Dan and Nawaki back."

"I know." she replied. "I was almost weak enough to allow you to do it too despite any wishes they may have had in that regard. I miss them so much and would have given almost anything to hold them in my arms again, but not this. I will be joining them anyways soon after I deal with you."

With that, she attacked, not really caring that Orochimaru and his bastard assistant who was also a medical nin if what he'd said was any indication were leading her into a place that would be more advantageous for them. All that mattered was destroying Orochimaru before he destroyed the home that Dan and Nawaki had sacrificed themselves for. She would be seeing them again soon, and she wanted to say at the very least that she had died protecting their home just as they had.

She had almost forgotten what their wishes would have been in her desperation to see them again, just as she had almost forgotten how to be the person that they had loved. If she hadn't gone to say goodbye to Jiraiya, and possibly spike his drink so he wouldn't follow her today, she probably would have made a different choice, but she hoped that she would not have, she hoped that regardless, she would have thought of Dan and Nawaki's wishes in the end just as Shizune had constantly begged her to. Just once, she wanted to be strong like she used to be, like Dan, Nawaki, Minato, and Kushina had been.

Jiraiya and Naruto had been talking about her when she had found him last night. Naruto had had his doubts about his "New Hokage", and Jiraiya had defended her, telling Naruto of the good, kind, and strong person who had vanished long ago and left a washed up old gambler behind. She wanted to be that person again, that person Jiraiya had spoken about in such glowing terms, that person that Dan and Nawaki had loved, if only for a moment. When she met Dan and Nawaki again on the other side, she wanted to be able to tell them that her death had actually meant something, rather than that she'd died drunk in a ditch somewhere as a dried up old hag.

&!&!&!&

Jiraiya heaved a sigh of relief when he saw signs of a battle at the meeting place, rather than Tsunade and a fully healed Orochimaru. It seemed that some deity somewhere was smiling down on him. He wouldn't be losing Tsunade the way he feared he would. Tsunade would not be dying by his hand on this day or any other day for that matter.

"Let's go." he said to Shizune and Naruto as he turned to follow the trail of destruction that led to the battlefield on which Tsunade was currently located, fighting their former comrade.

Even though it made him slightly sick to do so, he would fight Orochimaru. He would help Tsunade fight Orochimaru, and this time they would kill him. They would kill him together the way they should have done more than a decade ago.

If they had killed Orochimaru then, then Sensei would still be Hokage, and still be waiting for the proper moment to hand Naruto the hat and retiring once more. He would not have had to come here and try to force Tsunade to take a job she had never wanted, because it was a job he knew he couldn't handle, and would run away from at the first opportunity. Tsunade however...When Tsunade had something she felt obligated to do, she would do it no matter how she really felt about it. At least that was how the Tsunade he knew had been.

He raced ahead, hoping that they would get there in time since Orochimaru most assuredly was not alone. Naruto and Shizune trailed behind. He would have much rather have left them behind, but they might be needed.

&!&!&!&

Orochimaru watched as Kabuto battled Tsunade. Sure, she seemed strong and confident now, but he knew exactly how to pull the wind out of her sails and sap her fighting spirit. If all else failed, Kabuto had been instructed to use the easiest technique to do so. Once Kabuto did so, Tsunade would effectively remove herself from the battle for the same reason that she had been pulled out of the field during the Third Shinobi War.

For now, he would let her believe that she was bold, brave, and fierce. It would make her defeat and the final breaking of her spirit that came with it all the more sweeter when it happened. After she fell to her weakness and was unable to rise again, he would oh so kindly guide her back to his home where she would do as he'd asked like she should have done in the first place.

He hadn't wanted to have to break his former teammate, but if that was what it took...

&!&!&!&

Tsunade charged forward once more. She had yet to lay a finger on even a single strand of Orochimaru's hair. Orochimaru's assistant was young, and quick. She on the other hand was fifty years old, even though she didn't look it, and wasn't anywhere near as fast as she had been when she was that boy's age. Her age and her lifestyle had taken its toll on her. She wasn't nearly as strong or as fast as she used to be.

As she was beginning to tire, the boy popped a food pill of some sort, created a pair of chakra scalpels, and kicked the fight up a notch. In one quick move, he'd evaded one of her attacks and used the scalpels to sever a muscle in her arm and another one in her leg. After hampering her in this manner, he used the chakra scalpels to sever a muscle in her chest, severely reducing the amount of air she could take in, and further weakening her. This had caused the boy to become overconfident, and that had been his undoing. She used a rather sneaky attack that involved messing up the signals the brain sent to the limbs when his guard was down. Even if the boy managed to adapt, he wouldn't be as fast as he had been.

It still hadn't been enough though. After a while of experimenting with his movements and figuring out how to compensate, he was back on his feet and attacking. Just when she thought that she would fall to his onslaught, Jiraiya Shizune, and Naruto appeared, giving her a moment to recover.

"So that's how it is then Kabuto?" Naruto asked her opponent, sounding upset and betrayed.

"Yes, that's how it is Naruto. And, I just can't wait until I've got you on my exam table when this is over. You and I will have so much fun together."

"Not if I kill you first!" Naruto replied.

Before Naruto who looked so much like Nawaki could attack the much stronger opponent and get himself killed the way Nawaki had, she attacked again, giving it all she had. When she backed him into a corner and it looked like she would actually win, he sliced his hand open and flung the blood that came out all over her.

_Stop! Stop! Stop! No! Dan, don't leave me! Not now! Oh god! Dan! No!_

She barely noticed when she was flung backwards, or when Shizune began tending to her. All she could see was blood. Dan's blood staining and coating her hands, hands that failed to save him. Blood. Nawaki's blood staining the sheet that had covered him. Blood. Blood that turned the ground of every battlefield red.

She didn't really pay any attention as both sides sized each-other up and exchanged battle banter in hopes of knocking the other off balance without landing a blow. She didn't really pay attention when Orochimaru's assistant summoned a pair of serpents for Orochimaru, and Jiraiya had summoned one of his larger toads and rode into battle against their teammate. She wasn't watching when Shizune moved in to fight Orochimaru's assistant. All she could see was blood. Blood dripping and staining everything.

She barely noticed when Shizune was defeated, and Orochimaru's apprentice started in on her. All she saw was blood. Dan's blood. Nawaki's blood. Blood flowing from the injuries that her unconscious assistant had aquired fighting the boy who was assaulting her.

The next thing she knew, was that Naruto was standing in front of her, blocking Kabuto's blows.

"I won't let you hurt the Hokage!" Naruto yelled as a sphere of blue energy formed in his hand, a sphere of blue energy that she had last seen the boy's father using.

"Are you really going to stand there and tell me that you'd give your life to protect that?" Orochimaru's assistant said. "Look at her, she's sitting there trembling like a small child. She's unfit to bear the title Sannin, much less Hokage."

"It doesn't matter what I feel." Naruto said as he attacked Orochimaru's assistant. "I swore an oath to the Old Man that I would protect my village and my Hokage, and I won't go back on it no matter what!"

Orochimaru's assistant dodged Naruto's attack, attacked Naruto with a Chakra scalpel, and took out one of the boy's leg muscles.

Despite the fact that he was partially immobilized and completely outclassed Naruto continued to fight, continued to protect her, despite the fact that she was obviously completely unworthy of such regard. As she watched the boy fight, all she could see was Nawaki under the sheet, and Dan lying on the ground after being fatally wounded because he had taken an attack that had been meant for her.

_"..I will become Hokage to protect Grandfather's village." "...And that's why I decided to become Hokage...to protect the village" "...I Swore I would become Hokage one day, and that's one promise that only death will make me go back on!"  
_

Why? Why? Why was it that the people who deserved such sacrifices made on their behalf died instead? Why was it that the unworthy ones like her survived?

Naruto managed to capture the other boy's hand, and drive a Rasengan into his chest. In the moment that Naruto did this, Orochimaru's assistant drove a Chakra Scalpel into his chest. The boy stood for a moment before coughing up blood and falling over.

No! No! Nobody else should die for her, especially not Minato and little Kushina's son!

Even though the boy was fading fast, she poured healing Chakra into him, determined not to let this become a repeat of the day Dan died. It seemed useless though, as Naruto's pulse and breathing stopped entirely.

No! She wouldn't let him die! Not now!

In the moment she thought it was over, she felt a hand brush against her arm. She looked down and found herself staring in amazement. Despite the fact that he should be dead right now, the child was alive. He was breathing!

As she rechecked the boy's condition, the battle between Orochimaru and Jiraiya that had been winding down finally came to an end when Orochmaru fled saying that he would use another method to fix his arms, and swearing to destroy Konoha. The still seriously injured Kabuto who had taken the full force of Naruto's Rasengan and somehow still managed to survive followed. As Orochimaru was weak, and Jiraiya was at full strength, fleeing had been the only outcome that would be even vaguely in Orochimaru's favor, especially after Jiraiya and his summon had destroyed Orochimaru's snakes.

The battle was done, Orochimaru had escaped yet again, and it was now time to go home. They would catch Orochimaru again one day, and when they did, they would finally kill him.

Even though she wasn't worthy of the title that had belonged to her Sensei only a month ago, she would take the job. She would take the job, and do her best to protect the village that Dan and Nawaki had given their lives for. She would make sure that Orochimaru wouldn't destroy their home no matter how much he wanted to. She would protect their home like she should have been from the beginning rather than throwing her life away in a variety of gambling dens, trying to forget her brother and her boyfriend, and the sacrifices they had made.


	40. Return to Konoha

The journey back to Konoha was relatively uneventful. They had met no other enemies on the road, and made it back to the village in near record time. To Naruto, the Godaime Hokage seemed like an almost completely different person from the bitter drunk he'd met a week earlier. She stood tall and proud, and there was no sign of the shaking she had been doing in the fight against Orochimaru. Not until he'd scratched his arm and started bleeding that was. Based on Tsunade's shudders, the haemophobia had not entirely vanished.

If one didn't know about the drinking, the gambling, and the haemophobia...

Tsunade was almost the picture of what a Hokage should be. Stern, serious looking, straight, and proud. She certainly had the proper pedigree for the position considering the fact that the current Kages were mostly blood relatives of a prior Kage of their respective village. He just hoped that it wouldn't go as badly as he feared it would. Konoha needed a strong Hokage right now, or at the very least the semblance of one, since the village was currently rather vulnerable at the moment. Fortunately, Tsunade's reputation as one of the Sannin preceded her.

When he got home, it was to find Konohamaru expressing his grief over his grandfather's death by trying to prevent a couple Chunin from removing his grandfather's belongings from the Hokage's residence and office. When he'd left Konoha, Konohamaru had been trying to hide how upset he'd been about the Old Man's death. It seemed that he had finally left the denial stage and moved into anger.

While the other ninja were reluctant to deal with Konohamaru, Tsunade didn't indulge the boy. It was quite possible that there had been a similar incident in her past when either her grandfather or her Great-uncle had died. After Tsunade had had Konohamaru thrown out of the room he'd booby trapped, and the tower altogether for that matter, he had spent his afternoon trying to comfort the boy. Nothing he did seemed to work. He was beginning to understand how Konohamaru must have felt when he'd been going through his "bad days". Konohamaru would come around eventually however.

&!&!&!&

Shizune was happy to see the home she hadn't been back to in a very long time. Her faith in Tsunade had recently been restored. It had been slowly slipping for a long time until a couple of days ago. For years, it had seemed that her teacher hadn't cared for her or her opinion. No matter how many times she had tried to get Tsunade to listen to her, the woman had gone off and done whatever the hell she wanted come hell or high water.

During the incident that had restored her faith in Tsunade she thought that she wasn't listening to her at all, she thought Tsunade would make the worst mistake ever, and that thousands of innocent people would have to pay for it. It turned out that Tsunade had heard her words and heeded them, even though she hadn't appeared to do so. The entire week between when Orochimaru had made his oh so tempting offer, and the day Tsunade refused it, she had asked Tsunade what Dan and Nawaki would have wanted. Every time she asked, Tsunade either yelled at her to shut up, or walked away.

Instead of betraying the village that Dan and Nawaki had sacrificed themselves for in order to bring them back as she had feared she would, Tsunade had listened to her, had considered what Dan and Nawaki would have wanted, and had done the right thing. Not only that, she had accepted the position of Hokage in order to protect Konoha as they would have wanted her to do.

The Tsunade who had come back to Konoha was a person she could get behind, a person she would loyally serve for as long as she lived, a person it was an honor to assist rather than an obligation. She would do her part to help Tsunade be the best Hokage that it was possible for her to be.

That was the future however. For now though, she would wander the village, reacquainting herself with the home that had been fading in her memory over the many years she had been away.

&!&!&!&

Tsunade shivered as she walked through the corridors of the hospital. Though she couldn't see it, she could smell it. There was blood here. It was all over, though it was well hidden. She couldn't let it paralyze her though. She had come here for a purpose.

As she had been getting herself acquainted with her new office and coming duties, Maito Gai had shown up and begged her on bended knee to go and help Kakashi. The man had fallen victim to a Genjutsu that had been cast by Uchiha Itachi, and had been in a coma for nearly a month.

Genjutsu damage was hellishly tricky to repair as there was very little physical damage involved, but she and Uchiha Kagami had been working on methods for dealing with it before he died. One of their experiments on a prisoner from Iwa who had fallen into his own little world after falling victim to an exceedingly traumatic Genjutsu that had turned his worst fears against him before he'd been captured on the field of battle had shown a great deal of promise. She wasn't certain if it was a full cure though, as the man had been exchanged for a couple Konoha ninja before she could do any long-term studies.

It would be the method she and Kagami had devised that she would use in hopes of waking Kakashi up. Since there didn't seem to be anything else the medics could do, this could be Kakashi's only hope. Hopefully, it wouldn't turn out to be a fool's hope. If Kakashi managed to awaken, he would have to undergo a great deal of therapy in order to recover from whatever had happened in the Genjutsu world in which he'd been placed.

There were no guarantees that Kakashi would undergo the therapy though, ninja tended to be rather averse to such things, and trying to force them made them all the more determined to escape.

Fortunately for her nerves, Kakashi wasn't bleeding, nor was there a sign that he'd been bleeding recently. There was no blood. There would be no blood during the procedure. She could do this.

The method that she and Kagami had developed had been to counter the Genjutsu with another Genjutsu. She would plant a guide that would lead Kakashi out of whatever hell he was trapped in, and back into the real world.

Before doing that however, she healed the physical damage to his brain that had been caused by the attack and the month-long coma that had followed. Once the small amount of damage was corrected, she sent out her guide which she was certain that Kakashi would latch onto as there was no reason for the man to be there in whatever world Itachi had constructed for him. If that guide didn't work for whatever reason, she would send another.

The guide she sent was a basic mental image of a person who was important to the victim. It would have the sole purpose of leading the person out of whatever corner of their mind they had retreated to, and back into the real world. While the initial image was basic, just that of a person that the medic selected, such as a father, mother, teacher, or teammate, it would be complete when it reached the Genjutsu victim, as they would be filling in any necessary details themselves.

Once she put the Genjutsu into place, she sat back to wait. Before long, Hatake Kakashi's eyes fluttered open. Based on the way his eyes were scanning the room, he was awake, alert, and aware of his surroundings. Good. She would have to keep him here for several days of observation though.

As she prepared to leave, a medic came up to her, and informed her that Kakashi's student Uchiha Sasuke was in much the same condition.

She went to the boy's room to find Naruto and a pink hared girl he introduced to her as his teammate Haruno Sakura there discussing something. From the looks of things, Sakura had visited the room fairly often.

"What are you going to do?" the Haruno girl asked when she had mentioned that she was going to help Sasuke.

She explained the procedure to the two children. Both seemed to be able to follow her.

"Who are you going to send?" Naruto asked.

"I was thinking of sending in one of his teammates, since sending in a parent might be traumatic." she admitted.

"Eh, that might not be a good idea." Naruto replied.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Well, with the state Sasuke's in, either one of us could drive him away. I don't really get along with him, and the feeling's mutual on his part. No offense meant to Sakura, but, though she's improved over the last few months, she's a rabid Sasuke fangirl, and he really doesn't like those. Would it be possible for him to choose his own guide?" Naruto replied.

"That might be possible." she conceded.

&!&!&!&

The world of darkness that he'd been in for either a moment or an eternity or both began to recede. When he looked down at his hands, he found that he was the same size he had been during the massacre.

_Oh god. Not again! _he thought.

Instead of turning into that horrible blood red world where his clan fell around him, he found himself standing on the lakeside dock where his father had taught him how to use the Gokyaku Jutsu. As he studied his surroundings, he could see the final wisps of flame from the Jutsu he'd done that day dying over the water. Suddenly, his father was standing there just as he had that day.

He remembered this day, the day his father had asked him not to follow in his brother's footsteps. He hadn't understood why at the time, because he'd dearly loved and admired That Man. Now, he did. Had his father known what That Man was back then? Had he seen the signs of what was to come?

"Sasuke." his father said. "It's time to go home."

Home? Had Itachi actually killed him when he used the Tsukuyomi on him again? Had he died without realizing it?

He followed his father, wondering if he'd died without avenging the clan and whether or not his father would be disappointed in him for failing to do so. Instead of following the familiar path to the home his family had once shared, his father had walked out of the Uchiha district and into the village.

"This isn't the way home." he said, as he turned back onto the path towards their house.

"Yes it is." his father said, continuing down the road through the village. He didn't follow however. He made his way back to the house their family shared, both hoping and dreading what he might find there.

His mother stood outside the house sweeping the porch.

"Sasuke, you're not supposed to be here." his mother said. "You're supposed to be going home."

"But, this is home Kaa-san." he replied.

"No it isn't sweetheart." his mother said sadly. "After Itachi used the Tsukuyomi on you, you withdrew in on yourself. I'm here to guide you back to the real world where you belong."

"Why can't I stay here with you?" he asked, reluctant to leave this place where his parents and clan were alive. Had he remained in that dark place, he would have been more than happy to leave. Here however...

"Who's going to restore the clan if you stay here?" his mother asked. "That was one of your two main goals in life wasn't it? You can't restore the clan if you're hiding here. Technically you could, but an outsider would be raising your children, and an outsider would be saying what a Uchiha is and isn't."

He felt torn. What his mother said was true though. If he stayed here, he wouldn't be able to restore his clan, or avenge it.

"Let's get you home." his mother said, setting the broom beside the house. He reluctantly followed her into the village. As he did so, he found himself wondering why the representation of his inner self was Konoha.

"It's what you're most familiar with." his mother said, replying to his unasked question. "The path home could be anything. For you, Konoha is home, so the path home is Konoha."

If that was the case, then either the Academy or the Library would represent learning and knowledge. Perhaps he could find an answer to the question he'd been asking himself while That Man tortured him in one of those two places. Perhaps he would find an answer that he'd forgotten or overlooked while he was doing exactly what That Man had told him to do in his pursuit of vengeance.

Apologizing to his mother, he turned off the path home, and ran for the library. When he reached the library, he found it to be somewhat disorganized for some strange reason. Not only that, but several books had locks on them. One lock appeared to have been broken, and when he flipped through the book with the broken lock, he found that it was his memory of the night of the massacre, the memory of the first time his Sharingan had activated, the memory of That Man crying as he fled into the night.

He grabbed another of the books, this one was still locked. He tried to pry the lock open, but it wouldn't budge.

_"Dammit Sasuke. I told you to stay out of here. Shisui, deal with this."_

"I wouldn't keep trying to open that if I were you." said a voice he vaguely recognized. It was an elderly librarian who had been killed during the massacre. "You won't like what you find."

"But..." he said. He found that he had a burning desire to know what the book contained.

"Some things are best forgotten." the librarian said as she snatched the book from him and set it on the shelf. "This was one of them. You'd best be getting home now boy."

He turned from the library and rather than heading back to the path where he'd left his mother, he ran to the Academy. If the library contained memories of the past, then the Academy would contain knowledge. Knowledge was always useful.

When he reached the Academy, he found it virtually empty. There was nobody there, no teachers, no students, nobody except...

Uzumaki Naruto was prying open the teacher's storage lockers in the faculty lounge. He was dressed in the eye-searing shade of orange that he used to wear back at the Academy, back when he was the idiot and the class clown. He'd caught Naruto doing this before. As he watched, the boy opened one of the teachers' lunch boxes - one of the teachers' Sealed lunch boxes - and dropped several worms and a grasshopper inside. When he finished his prank, he turned around and seemed to notice him for the first time.

"What are you doing here Sasuke? You should be going home." Naruto said.

"I had thought that I would find a way to become stronger than That Man here." he replied, feeling kinda stupid.

"Why do you want to become _stronger_ than "That Man"?" Naruto asked as he led him down a hall that oddly enough didn't lead outside.

"In order to defeat him and avenge my clan." he replied promptly.

"Why do you have to be stronger than him to do so?" Naruto asked.

"Because, that's how you defeat someone. You become stronger than them, and then you take them down." he replied.

"Let me ask you something." Naruto said."In our straight Taijutsu only spars, what happens?"

"I win sometimes, and you win sometimes." he replied.

"In our spars where we aren't limited to Taijutsu, what happens?" Naruto asked.

"You win all the time because you cheat." he replied.

"Since you've acquired the Sharingan, has that changed?" Naruto asked.

"No." he replied reluctantly, remembering the number of ways Naruto had devised for getting around his eyes.

"Well there you go." Naruto said as he set up the simple prank that he had gotten Umino-sensei on his first day as their instructor, the prank that had fooled a fully qualified Chunin who had been much smarter and stronger than Naruto had been at the time. A chalkboard eraser, and a bit of vegetable oil, and an Academy student took down a full fledged Chunin.

He had his answer. He could defeat That Man without becoming That Man. He would have to be trickier rather than stronger. He didn't need to get That Man's eyes. He needed to find a way around his eyes.

"You'd better get going. I think your mother's waiting for you." Naruto said as he carefully rigged the clock with a bit of ninja wire in order to move the hands and change the time as he pleased.

He returned to the path. His mother had indeed waited. He told her how much he loved her as he went inside the hospital where his mother had led him.

His eyes opened, and he found himself staring at a rather sterile looking ceiling. He was in a bed. Sakura and Naruto were standing nearby, as was a strange blond woman he didn't recognize.


	41. A Hokage's Task

"Orochimaru-sama?" Kabuto said as he approached his master who was preparing to transfer to a new body as it would probably take a while to get ahold of Sasuke since he was currently heavily guarded at the hospital. Normally kidnapping the boy and bringing him here wouldn't have been too much of a problem for him, but the new Hokage had changed the entire hospital security system in the wake of his "desertion", and he didn't have the new schematics or patrol routes yet.

"Yes?" Orochimaru replied. He was looking rather tired at the moment, and he fully understood. The man was sick and in a great deal of pain.

"The destruction of Konoha might have to be postponed for a while." he said, deciding to get the worst out of the way, and hoping that Orochimaru didn't kill him due to his current mood. Orochimaru generally wasn't the sort of despot who killed his subordinates at the drop of a hat - at least not deliberately - but the last month or so had been exceedingly trying for him.

"Why?" Orochimaru asked.

"Oto is currently down by more than two thirds of our forces, since we poured almost everyone who currently wasn't part of a study into the invasion. I put some feelers out, and after what happened to the Kazekage, none of the other villages are willing to work with us. The Akatsuki turned the job down as well." he replied.

"How long?" Orochimaru asked.

"Two years, maybe three. Four at the outside. We need to rebuild our forces, and come up with a new plan. The old plan took over a year to create, and is no longer viable." he replied. "We will of course be needing updated maps after Konoha finishes rebuilding since I am almost certain that several streets will be changed now that the opportunity has presented itself since that serpent of yours trashed one of the historical districts."

"Fine. Whatever." Orochimaru said.

Fine? Whatever? Was Orochimaru well? Normally he'd be hopping mad and yelling about such a delay. Did he add to his painkillers without telling anyone again?

"Was there anything else you wanted?" Orochimaru asked, giving him a slightly glassy-eyed look.

Crap. He did. And from the looks of it, it was a rather powerful one. He would be having words with anyone who let Orochimaru near the chemistry sets. The lab assistants were supposed to be supervising him while he conducted his experiments to prevent such things. Having patients who could and would make their own medication was - to quote that lazy Genin from the last Exam - "Troublesome".

&!&!&!&

Tsunade had thought the Inauguration went well. Pretty much all she had to do was stand out on the balcony dressed in her Hokage robes and greet the cheering crowd after her Sensei's old teammates had presented her to the general public. After that came the meeting with the Clan Heads. She could remember when most of them were snot-nosed brats, Hyuuga Hiashi was about a decade younger than her, as were Akimichi Chouza and the rest of the original Ino Shika Chou team. Inuzuka Tsume was about a decade and a half younger than her. It made her feel old. She hated feeling old, that's one of the reasons that she had kept herself looking young. After the meeting, there had been a rather nice dinner which had been provided by one of the Civilian clans that owned a number of restaurants and grocery stores.

Yesterday and the Inauguration that had come with it had been for partying. Today was for work. There was more than enough of it waiting for her when she arrived at her office that morning. Almost the entire desk had been covered in books and papers that were a result of a month and a half's backlog which included the extra work all of the rebuilding was creating. As she was filling out paperwork on requested renovations for the Ninja Academy, one of her sensei's old teammates who she had kept on as the woman had been in her sensei's council of advisors for almost as long as she was alive poked her head in the door.

"Hokage-sama?" Koharu said.

"Yes?" she asked.

"If you have time, I would like you to go over the Chunin Exams." Koharu said. "As the Hokage is the one who decides on promotions, and Hiruzen died before any decisions were made...We weren't even sure if we should have any promotions at all this cycle, considering how the Exams ended, but Danzo said that the Exams were almost over, everyone was able to show off their abilities at least once, and that we should salvage at least something from the entire fiasco."

She sighed as she set the paperwork she was dealing with down.

"Do you have the footage from the arena?" she asked.

"Yes we do." Koharu replied.

"Have it brought to me, and I will review it as well as any suggestions that were made." she replied.

Fifteen minutes later, a t.v., a VCR, and a tape with the footage from the arena was brought in by one of the numerous "Office Chunin" along with crowd polls and her sensei's notes which had been recovered after the invasion. The arena in which the final phase of the Chunin Exams took place was one of the only actual parts of the village that was viewable on film to the general public outside of Konoha. All films and shows set "In Konoha" outside of the Chunin Exams were actually filmed in a back lot near the Fire Country Capitol.

She bit back tears as her sensei opened the Third Phase of the Exams, oblivious to the fact that his murderer was standing right next to him plotting his demise. She would have to view this as objectively as she could, and she couldn't let the knowledge of what happened a few hours later cloud her judgement. It wasn't necessarily those who had the most impressive fights that earned promotions. If that had been the case, her entire team wouldn't have passed on their first try. It was those who displayed strategic thinking, forward planning, and several other skills necessary for leadership that were promoted.

The first fight was Uzumaki Naruto vs. Hyuuga Neji, and it was almost painful to watch. With the Uchiha gone, the Hyuuga were the top contenders for the title of Konoha's most powerful clan. By all accounts, Hyuuga Neji who had been Rookie of the Year for his graduating class had been the best the Hyuuga clan had produced in generations. That didn't show here however. The arrogant boy with the supposedly all-seeing eyes who had aired his Clan's dirty laundry for the entire continent to see never once noticed that he was being led along by the nose until he'd been snapped into a particularly nasty but non-lethal trap.

During that fight, Naruto showed excellent strategic skills, and good situational awareness as well as good risk assessment. Rather than charging at his opponent who would have shut him down with the Juken, he had sent in several clones to deal with the boy while he prepared a number of useful traps. Not only that, but he had picked at one of the Hyuuga clan's more powerful techniques until he'd found a weakness. Not the best place to do so, but much better a comrade here than a sufficiently imaginative enemy on the battlefield.

The second fight had been Rock Lee vs. Kankuro of Suna. The fight would be amazing if you were a civilian or a Competitive Ninjutsu enthusiast. On the battlefield however...Rock Lee was damn lucky to be alive. The boy was talented. Exceedingly so. To have gotten as far as he had on Taijutsu alone was simply phenomenal. It had been the bonus score the boy had gotten on the Taijutsu portion of the Academy Graduation exam that had allowed him to graduate despite getting a zero on the Ninjutsu portion. Bonus scores in the Taijutsu section of that exam were rare and almost impossible to get. The boy needed a little polish though. Going straight into a fight without forward planning or any apparent strategy was a good way to get you and your team killed. Such fights happened sometimes despite a ninja's best efforts, but it was always a good idea to have a basic idea of what you are going to be doing before doing it.

Kankuro of Suna's skills with his puppets were well and good, but he too was still a little too rash. It wasn't her job to decide whether or not someone from Suna deserved a promotion however, that was the Kazekage's job.

The fight between Aburame Shino and Nara Shikamaru had been rather short, but she was reasonably certain that she'd seen enough. The Aburame kikachu swarm was a near perfect counter to the Nara Kagemane technique. Neither boy went straight into battle. Instead, both boys took the time to size each-other up and work out their strategies, that was if the Nara boy hadn't had his planned out to the last millisecond a month in advance. The fight, when it happened, was lightening quick and was over in a matter of moments. The Nara boy trapped the Aburame boy in his Kagemane Jutsu at almost the same time that the Aburame boy trapped the Nara in his swarm of kikachu. The Nara could have taken a kill shot that would have resulted in a double knock-out but had quit instead, knowing such an action would have been a somewhat pointless gesture on his part as both he and his opponent would have been unnecessarily injured.

Beyond the incredibly quick fight, both the Nara and the Aburame boys' records spoke for themselves. The Aburame was one of the most talented in his generation amongst the Aburame and well ranked when compared to the rest of his generation in Konoha as a whole. The Nara boy was lazy, but had a mind that was either on par with or possibly even surpassed that of his father.

The fight between Haruno Sakura and Temari of Suna was interesting to say the least. Sakura showed signs of forward planning, as she had gotten in close range with someone who was by accounts a long-range fighter. Both that and the Genjutsu she'd used showed signs of intelligence. The only problem was that the girl didn't know when to quit. The girl didn't know when it was best to give ground, back away, and regroup. Her Taijutsu skills did show a great deal of promise though. The fact that she was willing to work in several dirty tricks was rather interesting. She was a girl to watch in the future.

As with Kankuro, it wasn't her job to determine whether or not Temari was worthy of promotion.

The fifth fight had been Uchiha Sasuke vs. Gaara of Suna. Sasuke seemed to be more of a "Leap before you look" type person much like Rock Lee. In fact, the boy's Taijutsu style during the fight seemed to be a near copy of Lee's. Sasuke was fast, agile, put on an impressive show, but didn't show much in the way of caution. Then again, his teacher wasn't the sort to lead by example in that area. As the old saying went "You become a Genin again when you become a Jounin". Jounin were allowed to throw many of the rules they had picked up on their way to becoming Chunin out the window along with the dress-code as by the time they reached that stage they were strong enough to survive just about anything except say another Jounin or a determined band of Chunin. Kakashi was one of the Jounin who had done so. The points Sasuke earned in her book for the small amount of caution he'd shown initially were lost again when the boy had run off after his opponent and team during the start of the invasion.

Gaara, like his siblings, was not her problem.

After the last of the fights was over, she turned to the crowd polls, the notes from various dignitaries, and the notes her sensei had made. All three of them pretty much confirmed her decision. She took her decision to her council of advisors, and they pretty much agreed with her assessment. There had been some minor quibbling on one of her choices, but fortunately her sensei's notes had backed her up. If her sensei had believed him to be ready, who were they to say otherwise, especially when she agreed. Getting out the forms, she wrote up three promotions, sent in the requests for three Chunin Vests Adult size Small, and three Uniform Vouchers.

Once this was done, she sent for Aburame Shino, Nara Shikamaru, and Uzumaki Naruto.


	42. Chunin

Shino stood outside the Hokage's office wondering why he had been chosen for promotion alongside Shikamaru and the Uzumaki. The Uzumaki had more experience as a Genin than he and Shikamaru put together, and had even taken on and defeated an A-ranked missing nin. Shikamaru was an absolute genius when it came to tactics, and would have been Rookie of the Year instead of Uchiha Sasuke if he hadn't found the Academy Graduation Exam "Troublesome" and only done the minimum required to pass. He however...

He was rather inexperienced, and somewhat hot-headed for an Aburame. During the invasion, he had gone into a fight not just for the defense of Konoha, but also because he'd been robbed of his chance to deal with his chosen opponent in the arena during the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams. The Suna Puppeteer Kankuro had angered him, and insulted two of his teammates during the month-long hiatus between the second and third phases of the Chunin Exams. He had planned on getting his revenge for this during the quarterfinals, as he'd honestly believed that Rock Lee would lose to the boy. That was not to be however.

When the invasion started, he had taken his opportunity to go after the other boy and get his revenge. His doing so may have worked out to the advantage of those who were hoping to assist Uchiha Sasuke in his fight against Gaara, but still, his motives in that fight hadn't been as untainted as they should have been. Konoha should have come first in his mind on that day. Revenge should have come last or not at all.

While he felt honored that he was thought to be ready to attain this particular milestone in his life as a shinobi, he knew in his heart that he wasn't, not quite yet.

&!&!&!&

Shikamaru sighed as he stood outside the door to the Hokage's office, waiting for the new Godaime to call him in. He had the sneaking suspicion that he'd only been promoted because the people who helped the Hokage make these decisions thought that he wouldn't sign up to take the Chunin Exams a second time. Considering how they had gone this time though...

He studied the other two who were to be promoted alongside him as he waited.

Uzumaki Naruto seemed more than ready for this promotion, which many of the older shinobi believed had been too long in coming. Most of the wild nature the boy had possessed in the Academy had been tamed and channeled into more productive areas. The love of pranks had been turned into a trapping specialty, and the unpredictability he possessed had been carefully pruned and cultivated. The rambunctiousness and argumentativeness that had been ever-present back during his Academy days still showed on occasion, as his mouthing off to Ibiki of all people proved, but for the most part it had been curbed.

The Academy had done the Uzumaki no favors. The changes that had come about since the Uzumaki boy's graduation had been due to the patient work of someone who had the time to work with the boy one on one far more often than Umino-sensei had been able to with the class he also had to manage, as well as more than two and a half years of hands on experience in the field. The Uzumaki boy was a hands-on learner who did better with individual instruction. If Uzumaki had graduated with their year rather than just barely scraping an early pass by the skin of his teeth, there was a strong possibility that all that would have changed about the Uzumaki Naruto he'd known in the Academy would have been his age. It was entirely possible that the boy would have failed to graduate the Academy altogether if he'd stayed on, as the boy did not flourish in a classroom situation, especially a classroom situation in which he was unpopular and almost universally disliked by his instructors. Umino-sensei who genuinely cared about the Uzumaki would have been able to mitigate some of the damage, but not enough. The man had both arrived too late, and hadn't been able to give the Uzumaki what he needed because he had to divide his attention amongst twenty-six other students as well.

Aburame Shino would make a somewhat average Chunin at this point. He was at a level most shinobi were at when they started out as Chunin, though he was a little bit younger than many of them as on average, promotion to Chunin generally happened during one's mid to late teens. There were outliers on either end of the scale, but the Aburame wasn't really one of them. While he was one of the best his clan had produced this generation, he wasn't one of those rare geniuses that meteorically shot through the ranks like Hatake Kakashi for instance, but he had the potential to become a top ranked Jounin later on as he honed his skills. Based on the micro-expressions that were currently crossing what he could see of his face, the Aburame boy did not believe himself ready for this promotion.

He honestly wasn't certain about his promotion either. Being a Chunin and handling all of the new responsibilities that came with the position was going to be Troublesome.

&!&!&!&

Naruto's heart felt like it was trying to escape from its chest when the doors to the Hokage's office opened. The day he had been waiting for, the day he'd been longing for, the day he'd almost been pining for since Satoshi and Suzume had come home in brand-new vests a year ago had finally arrived. He could hardly believe it. He'd finally been promoted. He was going to be a Chunin.

After a time that seemed both an instant and an eternity, he was standing between Shikamaru and Aburame Shino whom he hadn't known all that well in a line in front of the Hokage's desk and being presented with his own vest.

"I do not believe that I am ready for this." the Aburame boy said when his vest was presented to him.

"The Shinobi who watched you during the exams believed you to be ready. Your former instructors believed you to be ready. The Council believed you to be ready, and most importantly, I believe you to be ready. In fact, the only person there were any questions over promoting this cycle was Nara Shikamaru." The Hokage replied as she firmly pressed the vest into the boy's hands.

The Aburame boy accepted his vest with a bow, while Shikamaru tried to hide his slightly chagrined expression.

All too soon, the short ceremony was over, and he was headed down to supply to cash in his uniform voucher. The uniform that the quartermaster handed him smelled slightly musty, but that was probably because there hadn't been a male Chunin his size in years. While he was going to be thirteen soon, he was still roughly the size of a ten year-old, which was the youngest age an Academy student could graduate at since certain laws had been passed more than four years ago.

He raced into the nearest restroom to put his new uniform on since it only smelled like it had been kept in a corner that didn't have adequate climate control for a while - which was something he could handle for the rest of the day since he was feeling too impatient to wait for it to be washed and dried which would take forever - and threw his vest on over it. Once he was done dressing he checked himself in the mirror. Even though the vest was a little large, he looked good.

After a second glance in the mirror, he stashed his old clothes in a storage scroll he'd had on him, slipped the scroll into one of his new vest's scroll pockets, and raced out the door and across the village. The looks he received as he raced through the village were the tiniest bit different this time. Some people didn't even seem to recognize him for a second or two. A couple people looked as if they'd seen a ghost as he passed by them as well. Behind him, whispers of "He's a Chunin? !" and "It's about time." trailed in his wake.

Before he knew it, he was at the home of the first of his precious people that he wanted to tell about his new rank.

&!&!&!&

Tetsuo had just put his daughter down for a nap when someone started pounding on the door so hard that he was almost afraid that they would knock it off its hinges. It was rattling violently in its frame with each knock as it was. When he flung the door open to give the person on the other side a piece of his mind, he found Naruto on his doorstep. It took him a full second to process what the boy was wearing, and when he did he found himself saying something completely different from what he had been planning on saying only seconds earlier.

"Congratulations Naruto!" he said as he pulled the boy who smelled faintly of mildew for some reason that he probably didn't want to know the answer to into a hug. "I knew you could do it! Let's go find Suzume and Satoshi and celebrate!"

He turned back into the house, told his wife where he was going, and grabbed his wallet. An hour later, he and Naruto were seated at the bar he'd taken his team to when they had celebrated Satoshi's and Suzume's promotions. With them was Satoshi, Suzume, Kurosaki who had been with Satoshi when they found him, the Haruno girl who had been with Suzume when they found her, the Academy Instructor Umino Iruka whom they'd run into on the way, Jiraiya who'd most likely heard about Naruto's promotion from the Hokage, Kakashi who'd come in with Jiraiya, and the Honored Grandson Konohamaru who had managed to sneak in somehow and was being supervised by the Academy Instructor to make sure he didn't sneak any alcoholic drinks.

"To Naruto!" they, and several other shinobi who had decided to join in on the celebrations cried as they raised their glasses. At another table, there was a responding "To Shikamaru!" from the former and current Ino Shika Cho teams and the friends they had with them. They raised their glasses to that as well.

&!&!&!&

Naruto felt slightly buzzed even hours after the drinking stopped, and they had finally all gone home from celebrating his and Shikamaru's promotions (he assumed that the Aburame had held a private celebration elsewhere). His nine-tailed occupant wouldn't let him get poisoned, but he also wouldn't do anything about alcohol unless it reached toxic levels, or the resulting hangover, as he had discovered as he once gotten himself drunk to see what it was like, and exactly how impaired he would be in that state. The party had been excellent. In the beginning, there had been two separate groups, one to celebrate with him and the other to celebrate with Shikamaru, but they had eventually merged together as time passed, and He and Shikamaru had eventually found themselves seated side by side as his and Shikamaru's friends toasted the both of them. Eventually, they had been forced to leave when they had run out of the cash they had on hand and the bartender had refused to take a check. He found one reason to be glad he didn't have living parents at the end of the party when he watched as Shikamaru had been forced to drag his heavily intoxicated father home because the man's friends were too drunk to support him themselves.

He was about ready to go to bed, but he had a chore to finish first in the laundry room. After pulling his laundry out of the dryer and folding it, he placed his new uniform at the top of the pile. He'd have to get a couple more for use while on duty which he would have to pay for out of pocket, but he thought that this one would always be his favorite despite the fact that it looked to have had a previous owner who didn't seem to have used it that much, and some practical joker had sewn Uchiha Itachi's name into the collar.

After putting his clothes away, he pulled on his nice warm pajamas that were fresh from the dryer and crawled into bed.

There was work to be done tomorrow, and there would undoubtedly be pain and suffering down the road as he took on more difficult missions, but today had been absolutely perfect.


	43. Dissolution

Kakashi sighed as he signed the papers before handing them over to the office-nin to be properly filed. His team was gone, and while part of him said good riddance, another part was already starting to miss them...

Naruto had been promoted to Chunin less than a week before, and as Jiraiya had claim to him due to an apprenticeship contract that Naruto was stunned to have learned had come into existance the instant he'd signed the toad summoning scroll, he had been unable to keep him. There was no way in hell he was going to take one of the brats from the upcoming Autumn cycle to fill the space where Naruto should have been, even if there had been one to spare. With that in mind, he had decided to divest himself of the team that had pretty much fallen apart before it could even form.

He had done his best to make amends with Naruto. Whether or not their relationship could return to the friendly state it had been in before he'd forced the child onto his team was yet to be seen. The boy could hold a grudge better than Kushina-san, and he had done much to earn Minato-sensei's son's ill will. He had hope though. After he'd given what for him was an abject apology though few would recognize it as such, Naruto had told him that he was still one of his precious people.

Sakura seemed to be happy about how things were turning out, as she had been wanting a transfer to the Medical Corps since Wave, as she had informed him when he told her he wasn't going to be her sensei any longer.

Sasuke, well Sasuke wasn't too happy about the way things were, and he kinda understood. The kid kept losing everyone who came into his life, and now he had lost the team he hadn't wanted to be on in the first place as well almost the instant he had gotten used to his situation.

"Well that had been a bust." he muttered as he left the Hokage Tower the instant his business was concluded.

And people wondered why he constantly refused to take any Genin teams.

&!&!&!&

Sakura's heart sped up as she entered the hospital with her paperwork in hand. Today, she would be starting her formal training as a medic. One of the biggest reasons for her excitement was that Tsunade-sama herself would be teaching some of the classes, and her apprentice Shizune would be teaching others. If she could catch the eye of one or both of them, it was possible that one of them would take her on as their personal student. There were several people who were going to be in the classes with her who were just as good as her in every area if not better, and they too would be vying for such a position. If she was to even have the slightest chance of reaching her goal, she would have to do better than her best, and more than excel.

She could do this. She had to do this. There were people who believed in her, and she could not let them down.

&!&!&!&

Naruto grumbled as he followed Jiraiya out of the gates. That whole "apprenticeship" thing had been a nasty trick to pull, but considering what he'd been doing at the time, he'd gotten what he deserved. Turnabout was fair play as they say. Sometimes you conned them, and sometimes they conned you.

Spending an indeterminate amount of time in Jiraiya's company wasn't his idea of fun, but Jiraiya assured him that this particular training trip was vitally important since he would be introducing him to a number of his contacts in his Intelligence network. Despite all of his faults, Jiraiya was Konoha's top Intelligence agent, and apparently he would be passing the reins onto him even though he wasn't sure he wanted them. The skills he would need to learn to manage an Intelligence network would be necessary for when he became Hokage though, so learn he would.

Jiraiya assured him that they wouldn't be gone too long, and he would hold him to that promise.

&!&!&!&

Sasuke scowled. He was Uchiha, he was an elite, he wasn't someone to be cast aside and then used to fill a gap. That's what had happened to him however. Apparently, he and Sakura had been used to fill gaps on a team that consisted of Naruto when Team 7 was formed. As soon as Naruto had gotten promoted, Kakashi had gotten rid of them, and he'd been used to fill another gap. This time, it was on Team 8. He had been sent here to take the Aburame's place since he too had gotten promoted, while he, the Uchiha who should have been promoted instead had yet again been left in the dust.

He knew why he'd been placed on Team 8 rather than handed over to one of the numerous Jounin who had been clamoring to take him on as apprentice. Kakashi seemed to think that he needed to be around "kids" his own age, and Kurenai was Konoha's top Genjutsu expert.

He'd rather be on his own with one of the other Jounin.

That was not to be however, since orders were orders, and if he tried getting around those orders by leaving the village which was pretty much the only way he could do so right now as Kakashi had assured him that if he tried to skip out on any team meetings or training sessions he would personally hunt him down and drag him to Kurenai, both Konoha and those assholes who tried to kidnap him recently would be hunting him down.

Why those morons who'd tried to kidnap him had thought he'd accept Orochimaru's offer, he did not know. The promise of power had been rather tempting for a few seconds until he'd remembered that it was the clever ninja who tended to live longer and win more fights in the long run, and that nobody offers something like that for free. With someone like Orochimaru, there would be some conditions attached to the offer that he didn't even want to think about, and there most assuredly would be a very large price to pay for services rendered in the end.

He was stuck on Team 8 until he persuaded the Hokage to give him a transfer. Considering how difficult it was to get an appointment with the woman, he could be stuck waiting a very long time...

**To be continued in First Try: Shippuden.**


End file.
